THE -PILGRIM 
.SHORE 


BY 
EDMUND  H.GARRETT 


ArtlLY  NAMES  OF  TIE  PILGRIMS 
FOREFATHERS01*  FIRST  COMERS 

IN  TIE  MAYFLOWER 


CARVER  •  BRADFORD  -WINSLOW 

BREWSTER  -ALLERTON- STAN  DISH 

ALDEN-BILLINGTON-BR1TTERIDGE 

BROWN  CHILTON-  CLARK-  COOKE 

COOPER-  CRACKSTONE-DOTEY 

EATON -ELY -ENGLISH  •  FLETCHER 

FULLER  -GARDINER-  GOODMAN 

HOLBECK-  HOOKE  •  HOPKINS 

HOWLAND-tANCEMORE  •  LATHAM 

LISTER-  MARGESON- MARTIN 

MORE-  MULLINS  •  NORRIS 

PRIEST- PROWER  -RIGDALE 

ROGERS  -SAMPSON  •  SOULE 

STORY-  THOMPSON  -TI LLEV 

TINKER -TREVOR-TURNER 

\VMREN-WHITE  •  WILDER 

WILLIAMS 


ADAMS  •  BASSETT  •  B  EAL' 
BOMPASSE-BREWSTER-BRIGCS 
CANNON  •  CONNOR  •  CUSHMAN 
DEAN-DE  LA  NOTE  •  FLAVEL 
FORD-HICKS-HILTON  •  MORGAN 
MORTON  •  NICHOLAS-  PALMER 
PRENCE  •  PITT  •  SIMONSON 
STATIE  •  STEWART -TENCH 
WINSLOW-WRICHT 


IN  ThEANNE 
^LITTLE  JAMES  A)  1623 

ANNABEL  •  BANGS  -BARTLETT 

BURCHER  •  CONANT  •  CLARK 

CUTHBERTSON-DIX-FAUNCE 

FLOOD-HEARD-flOLMAN-  JENNY 

KEMPTON-  LONG-MITCHELL 

P19RT9N  •  OLDHAM  •  PRATT 

RAND  -RATCLIFFE  •  SNOW 

5RAGUE  ^^TILDEN 

TJRACEY-WALLEN 


rl  A  Ol/r-    _ 


THE  PILGRIM  SHORE 


THE  PILGRIM  SHORE 


By  Edmund  H  Qarrett  - 
iMety&urings  drawn  from.  Nature 
or  jrom  Fancy  by  tfie  Writer  £T pub- 
lijhed  at  ^Boston  by  Little,Brown 
&  Company  -Anno  Domini  1900 


Copyright.  1900, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 


UNIVERSITY    PRESS    .    JOHN  WILSON 
AND   SON     •     CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


Jnterduction  w'icb  maybeskipb  " 

THEBlGLCWPfiPERS 


VEN  if  travel  abroad  best 
•  ~  strengthens  our  love  of 
country,  we  should  not 
neglect  for  it  those 
places,  hallowed  by  their 
associations  or  history,  that 
lie  at  our  very  doors.  And 
so  an  occasional  reminder 
of  the  attractions  of  our  own 
land  may  not  be  amiss,  and 
it  is  for  the  purpose  of  set- 
ting forth  in  a  familiar  way 
the  charm  of  a  pilgrimage 
through  some  of  our  own  towns  that  this 
book  is  now  published. 

The  writer  has   already  recorded  in  a  like 
manner  a  journey  northward  to  Cape  Ann,  J 
1  Romance  and  Reality  of  the  Puritan  Coast. 


8  Preface. 

and  as  this  volume  treats  of  the  South  Shore 
of  Massachusetts  Bay, — the  two  books  to- 
gether describe  the  coast  of  the  Puritans  and 
that  of  the  Pilgrims. 

These  two  regions,  like  the  two  peoples 
themselves,  while  having  much  in  common, 
yet  present  marked  contrasts. 

The  Puritan  land  is  rich,  populous,  and  en- 
terprising. Along  its  length  teeming  cities 
and  growing  towns  are  ever  reaching  toward 
each  other.  All  day  long  its  air  is  vexed 
with  the  thunder  of  rolling  trains  and  the 
shriek  of  shrill  complaining  trolleys.  Tall 
factory  chimneys  vie  in  height  with  its  stee- 
ples and  wreathe  their  smoke  over  its  homes, 
sails  of  toil  and  pleasure  crowd  its  harbors. 
It  is  active,  busy,  energetic,  laborious,  and 
competent.  Its  shore  is  comparatively  high, 
bold,  and  sternly  rockbound.1 

1  In  reality  it  extends  southward  to  the  rocks  of  Cohas- 
set,  for  the  river  that  flows  through  this  town  marked  the 
boundary  between  the  Plymouth  and  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  colonies.  In  this  book,  however,  the  whole  South 
Shore  from  Boston  to  Plymouth  is  treated  of  under  the 
general  title  of  the  Pilgrim  Shore. 


Preface.  9 

The  land  of  the  Pilgrims  is  by  contrast  less 
bold  and  rocky,  and  it  has  not  kept  pace  with 
the  other  side  of  the  bay,  either  in  population, 
material  prosperity,  or  enterprise.  It  has 
been  until  quite  lately  very  much  more 
countrified  and  quiet,  and  having  for  many 
years  been  less  easy  of  access,  it  is  not  so  well 
known  as  a  whole.  In  spite  of  this,  however, 
none  of  the  North  Shore  towns  is  so  famous 
as  Plymouth,  whose  soil  and  waters  nourished 
the  Forefathers,  men  whose  love  of  mercy 
and  justice,  whose  humanity  and  nobility  of 
character,  have  hallowed  the  place  of  their 
dwelling,  and  made  their  name  revered  at 
home  and  abroad. 

"  There  are  places  and  objects  so  intimately 
associated  with  the  world's  greatest  men  or 
with  mighty  deeds,"  says  Governor  Roger 
Wolcott,  "that  the  soul  of  him  who  gazes 
upon  them  is  lost  in  a  sense  of  reverent  awe, 
as  it  listens  to  the  voice  that  speaks  from  the 
past  in  words  like  those  which  came  from  the 
burning  bush, '  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy 
feet,  for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is 


io  Preface. 

holy  ground.'  On  the  sloping  hillside  of  Ply- 
mouth such  a  voice  is  breathed  by  the  brood- 
ing genius  of  the  place,  and  the  ear  must  be 
dull  that  fails  to  catch  the  whispered  words." 
Need  we  wonder  then  that  this  old  town 
has  become  an  American  shrine,  and  the  ways 
that  lead  to  it  made  paths  of  pilgrimage? 
Somehow,  in  spite  of  the  gentle  and  liberal 
tendencies  of  the  Pilgrims,  one  associates 
them  most  often  with  a  bleak  and  wintry 
shore  such  as  they  landed  on  that  stormy 
December  night  so  long  ago.  It  seems  to 
harmonize  well  with  the  stern  courage  which 
prompted  them  to  set  forth  for  the  New 
World,  and  is  a  fitting  background  to  the 
hardy,  temperate,  manly  lives  of  those  res- 
olute hearts,  self-exiled  for  conscience"  sake. 
Happily,  however,  the  coast  is  not  always 
forbidding,  nor  its  beauty  awesome ;  not  al- 
ways does  a  leaden  sky  hang  low  over  wan 
surges,  nor  the  gray  sea  fling  its  freezing 
spray  across  a  pallid  shore  to  black  forests 
buffeted  by  the  icy  north  wind.  Far  other- 
wise is  it  when  summer  clothes  it  in  genia] 


A  Pilgrim. 


Preface.  13 

and  smiling  beauty.  Then  kindly  blue  waves 
lap  its  warm  glimmering  sands.  To  beach 
and  rock  creep  grass,  and  vine,  and  flowering 
shrub.  Birds  then  sing  in  its  groves,  but- 
terflies flutter  over  its  fields,  the  pines,  like 
swinging  censers  perfume  the  winds  and  cast 
welcome  shadows  over  the  warm  earth.  As 
if  dressed  for  a  festival,  the  landscape  glistens 
under  the  sun,  and  all  is  as  sweet  as  the 
morning.  It  was  in  •  such  pleasant  times 
that  the  notes  and  sketches  in  this  book 
were  made,  and  the  purpose  has  been,  while 
wandering  along,  rendering  homage  to  the 
land's  beauty,  to  record  its  present  aspect 
and  recall  in  a  measure  its  traditions  and 
history. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE    7 

DORCHESTER 21 

NEPONSET 39 

QUINCY 43 

WEYMOUTH 77 

HINGHAM 86 

HULL .  97 

COHASSET 105 

SCITUATE 121 

MARSHFIELD 143 

DUXBURY 157 

KINGSTON 181 

PLYMOUTH 187 


•^spsn^---- 

ILLUSTRATIONS 


Priscilla Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Preface,  Decorative  Initial 7 

A  Pilgrim 1 1 

Tailpiece 13 

Contents,  Decorative  Heading 15 

List  of  Illustrations,  Decorative  Heading  .     .     .  17 

Dorchester,  Decorative  Initial 21 

"  Gardens  there  were  everywhere  "  ....     24 

The  Blake  House 27 

"  Till  in  turn  she  dreamed,  herself  "      .     .     .31 
Captain  Roger  Clap 37 


1 8         A  List  of  the  Illustrations 

PAGE 

Neponset,  Decorative  Initial 39 

"  Mounted  guard  at  a  window  "  .  .  .  .  41 

Quincy,  Decorative  Heading 43 

Unitarian  Church,  Wollaston 44 

"  The  steep  hill  by  the  tablet  w ......  47 

Dorothy  Q 51 

The  Quincy  House 55 

Merrie  Mounte 59 

Lord  of  Misrule 61 

"  Cut  down  the  Maypole  " 65 

Christ  Church  Fountain 69 

John  Quincy  Adams  was  born  here  ...  73 

John  Adams  House 76 

Weymouth,  Decorative  Heading 77 

The  Fore  River 78 

Wattawamat Si 

The  Smith  Parsonage 84 

Hingham,  Decorative  Heading 86 

Home  of  General  Lincoln 87 

Major-General  Lincoln .  89 

An  Antique  Treasure 94 

//«//,  Decorative  Heading 97 

"As  necessary  as  church  and  preaching"  .  99 

Hollyhocks 103 


A  List  of  the  Illustrations  19 

PAGE 

Cohasset,  Decorative  Heading 105 

The  Jerusalem  Road 107 

Cohasset  River m 

Cohasset  Common 113 

"Through  the  village " 115 

li  Their  home  on  the  little  hill  "      .     .     .     .  1 16 

The  old  Lincoln  House 119 

Scituate,  Decorative  Heading 12 1 

Fourth  Cliff,  Scituate 122 

The  Street,  Scituate  Harbor 125 

"  The  mill  that  stood  by  it " 129 

The  "  Old  Oaken  Bucket  " 133 

"  The  placid  stream  sleeps  " 135 

On  Humarock  Beach 137 

"  And  Jemmy  the  Negur  shall  catch  it  for 

her" 141 

Marshfield,  Decorative  Heading 143 

On  the  old  White  Estate 144 

The  Winslow  Arms 147 

Proud  Peacocks 149 

The  old  Winslow  House 153 

Duxbury,  Decorative  Heading 157 

"  The  Married  Lovers  " 159 

The  John  Alden  House 163 

The  Arch  Priscilla  .     ........  167 


2o         A  List  of  the  Illustrations 

Duxbury  (continued).  PAGE 

The  Grave  of  Miles  Standish 169 

"At  Standish's  Fireside" 173 

Miles  Standish 175 

The  Standish  Cottage 179 

Kingston,  Decorative  Heading 1 8 1 

By  Island  Creek  .  .  .  , 182 

Major  John  Bradford's  House 184 

Plymouth,  Decorative  Heading 187 

The  pewter  plate  and  iron  pot 192 

"  Plymouth's  first,  last,  and  only  duel "  .  .  1 97 

One  of  the  quaint  chairs 199 

Flax-wheel 199 

Cradle 200 

North  Street 203 

"  Mary  Chilton  first " 209 

Site  of  First  House 213 

Ancient  Mere-steads 217 

Governor  Bradford 219 

The  Bradford  Monument 223 

The  Oldest  House 225 

"  A  Paradise  to  Etchers  " 227 

Pond  Lilies 230 

"Just  as  the  Pilgrims  found  it"  ....  231 

Tailpiece 234 


DORCHESTER 


he  way  out  of  cities  is  not  always  a 
pleasant  one,   for  between  town 
and  country  there  lies  commonly 
a  forlorn.region,  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other,  whence   the   country  has 
and  tne  city  has   not  yet  set 
firmly  its  foot.     It  seems  like  some 
melancholy  shore  on  which  beat  the 
waves  of  urban  life,  casting  up  the 
scum    and     dregs 
of  its  poverty, 
toil,    and 
m  i  s  e  ry. 
Over 
thisland, 
blighted 

by  the  smoke  and  cinders  of  grimy  work- 
shops,   brood    squalor,    intemperance,    and 


.     - 


22  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

weariness,  settling  on  the  old  dumps  and 
arid  wastes,  fattening  ever  on  the  filth,  the 
unhealthy  fumes,  and  the  noxious  odors  that 
overspread  and  arise  from  all  this  cast-out 
detritus.  Hurry  through  this  unlovely  land, 
if  it  cannot  be  avoided. 

Such  a  waste  must  be  passed  going  to 
the  Pilgrim  Shore,  unless  one  leaves  the  city 
from  the  west,  and  so  goes  by  the  parks  and 
through  Roxbury  to  the  first  town  on  the 
South  Shore,  "  Good  Old  Dorchester." 
Settled  in  1630,  it  was  first  known  as  Matta- 
pan;  for  in  history  we  read  that  the  Court 
of  Assistants  held  at  Charlestown,  September 
7,  1630,  ordered  that •"  Trimountaine  be  called 
Boston;  Mattapan,  Dorchester,  and  the 
towne  upon  Charles  Ryver,  Watertown." 

"  Why  they  called  it  Dorchester,"  says 
elder  James  Blake,  one  of  the  earliest  annalists, 
"  I  never  heard ;  but  there  was  some  of  ye 
Towne  of  Dorchester  that  settled  here,  and 
it  is  very  likely  it  might  be  in  honor  of  ye 
aforesaid  Rev'd  Mr.  White  of  Dorchester." 
This  Mr.  White  was  Rector  of  Trinity  Parish, 


Dorchester.  23 

Dorchester,  England,  and  was  the  most 
prominent  of  the  active  promoters  of  the 
Puritan  emigration.  He  organized  the  church 
that  settled  here,  and  aided  it  with  heart  and 
purse. 

In  1633  this  was  declared  to  be  the  great- 
est town  in  all  New  England,  by  the  author 
of  "  New  England's  Prospect,"  well  wooded 
and  watered  :  "  very  good  arable  grounds  and 
Hay-ground,  faire  Cornefields  and  pleasant 
Gardens."  And  this  description  of  its  attrac- 
tions seems  to  have  held  good  many,  many 
years;  indeed  no  town  near  Boston  for  so 
long  a  time  preserved  its  rural  beauty,  its 
country  simplicity,  and  its  air  of  well-bred 
English  quiet.  I  remember,  especially,  just 
how  it  used  to  look  in  the  sixties  seen  from 
the  neighboring  high  hills  of  Roxbury,  so 
invitingly  fair  it  was,  stretching  green  un- 
dulations against  its  blue  bay  and  the  sea's 
rim,  its  houses  and  steeples  shining  white, 
and  its  gardens  hanging  to  its  hillsides  like 
apples  on  a  bough.  Gardens  there  were 
everywhere,  pleasant  as  in  the  days  of  the 


24  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

quaint  old  author  of  the  "  Prospect,"  not  like 
the  shaven  lawns  and  geometric  parterres  of 


"  Gardens  there  were  everywhere." 


to-day,    nor    shamming    nature    either,   but 
picturesquely    formal     and     yet    accidental. 


Dorchester.  25 

Therein  grew  venerable  pear-trees,  and  spread 
crooked  apple  boughs,  and  in  cherry-time 
luscious  black-hearts  and  white-hearts  hung 
thickly  above  their  own  gummy  trunks. 
Streaked  gooseberries  fattened  there,  and 
currants  crimsoned,  and  in  thorny  thickets 
long  blackberries  ripened  and  sweetened 
till  they  dropped  of  their  own  weight  to  the 
rich  and  shaded  soil  that  nourished  them. 
And  all  kinds  of  old  fashioned  flowers  spread 
their  bloom  along  the  prim  box-bordered 
paths  that  led  formally  to  the  pleasant  home- 
steads. Some  of  them  old  Revolutionary 
mansions,  and  some  that  were  already  an- 
tique when  these  were  built,  dating  from  that 
far  colonial  time  when  this  was  the  greatest 
town  in  all  New  England. 

Of  all  these  old  colonial  houses,  the  only 
one  remaining  nearly  in  its  original  condition 
is  the  old  Blake  house,  said  to  have  been  built 
before  1650  by  elder  James  Blake.  Its  pre- 
servation is  due  to  the  Dorchester  Historical 
Society,  whose  home  it  now  is.  They  re- 
stored it,  and  moved  it  from  its  old  founda- 


26  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

tion  to  its  present  site  under  the  great  trees 
where  the  new  park  way  starts  from  the  end 
of  Massachusetts  Avenue. 

It  was  on  a  winter's  night,  just  after  a  great 
snow-storm,  that  I  made  my  first  visit  to  this 
old  colonial  home.  Upon  the  roof  the  snow 
sparkled  coldly  against  the  frosty  sky,  and 
through  the  latticed  windows  the  lamp  and 
fire-light  passed  the  black  walls  and  flickered 
on  the  snow-drifts  and  the  winter-laden  trees, 
giving  a  promise  of  the  warmth  and  cosy 
old-fashioned  comfort  within.  I  seemed  to 
step  at  once  by  the  hospitably  opened  door 
into  a  past  far  from  the  promiscuous  apart- 
ment houses  near  by,  and  the  shrieking,  clang- 
ing trolley  car  that  had  whisked  me  through 
the  city  streets  with  our  modern  marvellous 
and  unregarded  magic.  The  present  slipped 
away  from  me,  and  my  fancy  peopled  the  low 
ceiled  rooms  with  the  shapes  of  staid  God- 
fearing Puritans.  Undoubtedly,  it  was  in 
some  interior  quaintly  like  this  that  Captain 
Roger  Clap,  the  first  annalist  of  Dorchester, 


The  Blake  House, 


Dorchester.  29 

set  down  his  memoirs  of  that  early  time  that 
are  now  so  precious.  And  I  seemed  to  see 
him  at  his  work  upon  them  in  moments 
snatched  from  ruder  toil.  And  Mistress 
Joanna  Blake,  too,  hushing  the  children,  or 
singing  softly  one  of  the  old  Puritan  hymns 
as  she  rocked  the  youngest  to  sleep,  till  in 
turn  she  dreamed  herself,  dreamed  of  the 
hedgerows  and  orchards  of  old  Dorsetshire, 
the  pleasant  lanes,  the  breezy  hills,  the  shel- 
tered valleys,  the  roses,  the  hawthorn,  the 
skylark  and  nightingale,  snugly  thatched 
cottages,  the  old  ivy  clad  church  and  the 
quiet  church-yard  in  their  old  home  beyond 
the  wide,  wide  sea.  I  wonder  if  she  did  not 
sometimes  sigh  for  the  motherland,  in  spite  of 
the  Puritan  grit.  No  such  weakness  or  ten- 
derness, however,  found  a  place  in  the  hearts 
of  the  men,  if  they  were  all  like  Captain 
Roger  Clap  ;  for,  after  reciting  the  sore  straits 
to  which  they  were  put  by  hardships,  and  for 
want  of  provisions  for  themselves  and  their 
little  ones,  he  could  yet  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
write,  "  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  did 


30  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

wish  in  my  Heart  that  I  had  not  come  unto 
this  Country  or  that  1  ever  did  wish  myself 
back  again  to  my  Father's  House." 

But  comforts  accumulated  in  time;  for  thus 
he  apostrophizes  his  children,  "  You  have 
better  Food  and  Raiment  than  was  in  former 
times  ;  but  have  you  better  Hearts  than  your 
Forefathers  had?  If  so,  Rejoice  in  that 
Mercy  and  let  New  England  then  shout  for 
Joy." 

The  old  house  has  been  happily  furnished 
with  old  colonial  and  provincial  belonging,  so 
that  it  is  precious  to  the  artist  or  antiquary. 
In  the  summer  it  seems  a  little  out  of  keep- 
ing with  its  park-like  surroundings,  and  one 
is  not  surprised  to  learn  then  that  it  has  been 
moved  here.  It  has  the  look  of  those  an- 
tiques which  one  sees  set  in  the  glass  cases 
of  museums,  stripped  of  their  natural  uses 
and  surroundings,  and  become  only  objects 
of  curiosity. 

Here,  as  elsewhere  in  Dorchester,  one  will 
notice  the  magnificent  old  trees.  The  people 
must  always  have  loved  trees,  and  to  this  day 


Till  in  turn  she  dreamed  herself." 


Dorchester.  33 

they  protect  and  preserve  them  lovingly.  A 
bit  of  the  sidewalk  is  not  begrudged  them, 
nor  even  a  little  of  the  roadway.  After  all, 
what  decent  man  would  not  be  willing  to 
turn  a  little  out  of  his  way  for  the  sake  of  a 
tree !  So  they  lift  their  screen  of  leaves  in 
the  summer,  their  lacing  of  twigs  in  the 
winter,  over  the  streets,  and  cast  shade  and 
beauty  over  the  whole  place.  However,  this 
old  town  is  changing  so  rapidly  that  it  seems 
as  if  stone  and  brick  must  soon  take  the  place 
of  leaves  and  grass,  and  the  trees  follow  after 
the  old  houses.  Indeed,  the  new  houses 
seem  no  longer  like  interlopers,  for  it  is  rather 
the  old  ones,  hanging  hopelessly  to  their 
diminished  gardens,  that  seem  out  of  place, 
elbowed  out  of  countenance  by  aggressive 
newcomers,  like  guests  that  have  worn  out 
their  welcome.  It  is  a  pity  that  they  should 
all  go,  as  go  they  must  in  a  short  time. 

But  if  Dorchester  is  to  be  robbed  of  her 
old  landmarks,  no  one  shall  take  from  her 
the  grand  part  she  played  in  the  making  of 

the    Puritan  republic.     Here  was  raised  the 
3 


34  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

first  meeting-house 1  in  the  Bay  Colony.  She 
claims,  too,  the  distinguished  honor  of  having 
instituted  the  first  special  town  government 
in  New  England.  But  perhaps  greater  pride 
yet  is  felt  that  the  people  of  Dorchester  were 
the  first  in  all  America  who  by  a  direct  tax 
or  assessment  made  public  provision  for  a 
free  school.  The  instruction  to  the  school- 
master was  that  he  should  "  equally  and 
impartially  receive  and  instruct  such  as  shalbe 
sent  and  Committed  to  him  for  that  end, 
whither  there  parents  bee  poore  or  rich." 
This  was  the  corner-stone  of  our  public 
school  system.  The  moneys  for  this  purpose 
came  from  the  rental  of  Thompson's  Island, 
which  was  owned  by  the  town. 

This  island  lies  across  Dorchester  Bay,  off 
Squantum  Point,  and  is  seen  in  the  glimpses 
that  one  has  of  the  bay  and  harbor  on  the 
road  to  Neponset.  At  high  tide  this  view  is 
very  pretty.  In  the  foreground  lies  embow- 
ered Savin  Hill,  and  beyond  it  South  Boston. 

1  It  was  built  in  1631  on  the  plain  near  the  corner  of 
Cottage  and  Pleasant  Streets. 


Dorchester.  35 

The  latter  was  a  great  attraction  to  the  Puri- 
tan settlers,  for  on  that  grassy  neck  of  land 
they  found  fine  pasturage  for  their  cattle. 

From  the  Marine  Park  at  the  Point,  the 
long  iron  pier  is  seen  jutting  out  to  Fort  In- 
dependence on  Castle  Island.  This  has 
been  a  strong  place  since  1634,  or  almost 
from  the  first  settlement;  for,  says  Captain 
Roger  Clap,  "  God  stirred  up  his  poor  ser- 
vants to  use  means  in  their  beginnings  for  their 
preservation.  ...  At  first  they  built  a  castle 
with  mud  walls  which  stood  divers  years  .  .  . 
when  the  mud  walls  failed  it  was  built  again 
with  pine-trees  and  earth."  Brick  walls 
replaced  these  in  1645,  anc^,  says  Edward 
Johnson,  "  Although  this  Castle  cost  about 
.£4000  yet  are  not  this  poor  pilgrim  people 
weary  of  maintaining  it  in  good  repair." 

Roger  Clap  was  captain  of  "  The  Castle  " 
in  his  old  age,  when  it  was  indeed  a  strong 
fort  for  that  time,  mounting  "  38  guns  and  16 
whole  culverin."  Its  name  was  changed  in 
1705  to  Castle  William,  in  honor  probably  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  William  III.,  though 


36  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

he  had  at  that  date  been  dead  three  years, 
and  the  colonies  were  under  the  rule  of 
simple,  homely  Queen  Anne.  Again  was  it 
rechristened,  in  1799,  after  it  had  been  ceded 
to  the  national  government,  and  the  temper 
of  the  people  required  a  name  more  in  keep- 
ing with  their  republican  contempt  of  kings, 
and  so  it  was  called  Fort  Independence,  as 
it  is  to-day. 

Though  the  shore  of  Dorchester  Bay  was 
perhaps  never  attractive  except  at  high  tide, 
still  it  must  have  deserved  a  better  fate  than 
has  come  to  it.  Neglect  and  other  obvious 
factors  have  brought  it  to  a  state  of  decided 
unloveliness.  The  redeeming  feature  of  the 
ride  shorewise  is  the  outlook  over  the  bay 
and  harbor,  for  there  are  few  breaks  in  the 
long  dreariness  of  the  ride  down  to  the  village 
of  Neponset. 


Captain  Roger  Clap. 


i HIS  part  of  Dorchester 
is  named  from  the 
Neponset  tribe  of  In- 
dians, whose  home  it 
was.  Here  change  is 
as  busy  as  in  the  other 
parts  of  Dorchester, 
and  its  old  landmarks 
have  nearly  all  passed 
away.  Perhaps  the  greatest  loss  was  that  of 
the  Old  Minot  House,  for  it  was  not  only  a 
very  old  house,  built  before  1640,  but  it  was 
called  the  oldest  wooden  house  on  the  conti- 
nent. Yet  although  it  seemed  outwardly  to 
be  only  of  wood,  it  was  really  all  lined  be- 
tween its  ponderous  oaken  timbers  with  brick, 
fort-like  and  bullet  proof.  Picturesquely  an- 
cient it  was,  with  a  pleasant  outlook  over  the 


40  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

winding  river  and  the  level   marshes  to  the 
Blue  Hills. 

It  had  its  legend,  too,  one  tinctured  with 
the  resolute  bravery  of  that  old  time  which 
pulsed  from  the  hearts  of  both  men  and 
women.  In  this  instance  't  was  the  courage 
of  a  woman  ;  for  it  is  related  that,  during  King 
Philip's  War,  a  straggling  red  warrior  sud- 
denly appeared  before  the  old  house,  when  it 
was  occupied  by  a  lone  maid  and  two  of  John 
Minot's  small  children,  but  not  to  the  con- 
fusion of  the  young  woman.  For  no  sooner 
did  she  see  the  Indian,  than  she  hid  the  two 
babies  under  a  brass  kettle  and  ran  upstairs 
for  a  musket,  and  then  mounted  guard  at 
a  window.  The  Indian,  who  was  armed  like- 
wise, fired  first  and  missed  her ;  but  she, 
taking  careful  aim,  wounded  him  in  the 
shoulder.  Mad  with  rage  and  pain,  he  then 
tried  to  force  an  entrance  through  a  window ; 
whereat  the  amazon  rushed  to  the  fire-place, 
and,  filling  a  shovel  with  burning  coals,  hurled 
them  in  his  horrible  painted  face.  Doubly 
wounded  with  fire  and  lead,  the  foiled  sav- 


Neponset.  41 

age,  weak  and  suffering,  crept  off  into  the 
woods,  in  the  depths  of  which  he  was  after- 
wards found  dead. 


"  Mounted  guard  at  a  window." 

Unhappily  the  old  house  caught  fire  in 
1874,  and  burned  to  the  ground.  What  a 
pity  to  have  lost  the  theatre  of  such  an 
heroic  adventure  ! 

From  the  wooden  bridge  over  the  Nepon- 


4 2  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

set  River  there  is  a  pretty  view  inland  across 
the  green  meadows  and  blue  curves  of  the 
river  to  the  steeples  and  groves  of  Milton, 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Great  Blue  Hill 
that  Captain  John  Smith  called  "  the  high 
mountaine  of  Massachusetts."  Indeed,  it  was 
from  the  native  name  of  this  hill,  Massa- 
vuachusett,  that  the  tribe  of  that  name  was 
called,  and  so  our  State  itself  takes  its  name 
secondly  from  these  same  hills.  How  long 
the  range  has  been  known  as  the  Blue  Hills, 
I  do  not  know,  but  the  reason  is  obvious  to 
any  one  who  sees  them  from  the  bay.  Wood, 
in  his  "New  England's  Prospect,"  1634,  says 
that,  "  Up  into  the  Country  westward  from 
the  plantations  is  a  high  hill  which  is  called 
rattlesnake  hill  where  there  is  great  store  of 
these  poysonous  creatures."  I  know  that 
these  dreaded  reptiles  used  to  be  common 
enough  there,  and  I  am  told  that  they  are 
even  now  occasionally  found  by  the  park 
guardians,  and  to  this  day  the  easternmost 
of  the  chain  is  called  Rattlesnake  Hill. 


UJNCV. 


ACROSS  the  bridge 
in  Atlantic  a  road  turns 
off  seaward  to  Squan- 
tum,  along  a  neck  of 
mingled  beach  and 
marsh.  The  name 
commemorates  that  fast  friend 
of  the  Pilgrims,  Squantum  — 
Squanto  or  Tisquantum,  as  he 
is  variously  called  in  the  old 
chronicles.  He  piloted  ten 
adventurous  men  of  Plymouth, 
amongst  whom  were  Standish 
and  Winslow,  to  this  beautiful  little  promon- 
tory in  1621.  According  to  Edward  Everett 
Hale,  the  account  of  this  expedition  is  the 
first  authentic  record  of  the  landing  of  Eng- 
lishmen in  the  vicinity  of  Boston.  The 


44 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


Quincy  Daughters  of  the  Revolution  have 
placed  here  a  cairn  with  an  inscription  in 
memory  of  that  early  pilgrimage. 


Unitarian  Church.  Wollaston. 


The  peninsula  is  now  cut  up  into  private 
estates  profusely  decorated  with  signs  for- 
bidding trespass,  and  is  connected  by  a  long 
causeway  with  Moon  Island,  the  mouth  of  a 


Quincy.  45 

great  sewer.  Years  ago  Squantum  was  a 
pretty  little  place,  a  miniature  Nahant;  but 
it  now  is  hardly  worth  a  visit. 

If  one  keeps  on  past  Atlantic,  and  crosses 
the  railway,  skirting  the  Neponset  River  and 
Meadows,  where  is  the  site  of  the  first  rail- 
way in  America,  he  will  soon  come  up  the 
hill  by  the  Unitarian  Church  into  Wollaston. 

Right  by  the  square  at  the  foot  of  First 
Hill  is  a  tablet  set  in  the  greensward  and 
thus  inscribed :  — 

This  and  the  neighboring 
Wollaston  Hills  were  part  of  the 

Original  grant  of  600  acres 

Made  by  the  town  of  Boston  to 

William  Hutchinson  in  1636-7. 

His  house  stood  near  this  spot, 

And  to  it  came  his  wife 

Ann  Hutchinson 

on  the  seventeenth  of  April  1638 

When  exiled  from  Massachusetts 

by  the  General  Court  of  the  Colony, 

and  here  she  tarried  for  a  brief  space 

While  on  her  way  to  Rhode  Island 


This  Tablet  placed  A.D.  1894. 


46  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

So  we  find  that  at  the  beginning  of  its  his- 
tory, Wollaston  was  sheltering  and  comfort- 
ing an  "  advanced  woman." 

This  is  one  of  the  few  places  named  after 
their  founders,  for  we  learn  from  Dudley's  let- 
ter to  Bridget,  Countess  of  Warwick,  that  "one 
Capt.  Wollaston  with  some  thirty  with  him 
built  on  a  hill  which  he  named  Mount  Wollas- 
ton." Now  though  this  was  undoubtedly  a 
part  of  the  original  domain  of  the  Captain,  the 
first  settlement  was  not  made  just  here.  That 
place,  known  sometimes  as  Merrymount,  we 
shall  visit  later,  meanwhile  it  is  best  to  climb 
the  steep  hill  by  the  tablet,  the  roses,  the 
pretty  cottages,  and  the  flagstaff,  for  Wollas- 
ton is  really  a  pretty  place,  and  would  be 
misjudged  if  seen  only  from  the  lower  road. 
From  the  top  of  the  hill,  Grand  View  Avenue, 
shady  and  pleasant,  leads  on  to  Second  Hill, 
with  many  a  vista  over  the  harbor  and  the 
town-hemmed  city. 

A  mile  it  is  to  Quincy,  and,  just  before 
reaching  the  centre,  our  road  crosses  Furnace 
Brook.  Then  the  first  house  on  the  right,  at 


The  steep  hill  by  the  tablet." 


Quincy.  49 

the  corner  of  Adams  Street,  is  that  of  Brooks 
Adams.  A  long  low  gambrel-roofed  mansion 
under  stately  elms,  and  girt  with  pleasant 
gardens,  it  has  in  a  measure  the  air  of  some 
old  English  manor-houses  which  have  grown 
slowly  in  a  rambling  and  delightful  way,  by 
pushing  out  an  ell  here,  or  gallery  there,  as  a 
growing  family  required,  or  a  waxing  fortune 
justified. 

Originally  this  was  the  country  -seat  of  a 
rich  and  powerful  colonial  family,  the  Vassals. 
'T  is  said  that  they  were  of  Italian  blood,  and 
wealthy  beyond  the  habit  of  those  days,  lords, 
too,  of  vast  estates  in  New  England  and  the 
West  Indies.  From  his  possessions  in  the 
latter  place,  it  was  that  Leonard  Vassal 
brought  the  magnificent  old  Santo  Domingo 
mahogany  with  which  one  of  the  old  rooms  is 
panelled  from  floor  to  ceiling. 

This,  the  most  interesting  of  the  Adams 
houses,  has  sometimes  been  called  the  House 
of  Golden  Weddings;  for  in  one  of  its 
rooms  have  been  celebrated  the  golden  wed- 
dings of  John  Adams,  of  his  son  John  Quincy 
4 


50  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Adams,  and  his  grandson  Charles  Francis 
Adams. 

Opposite  the  old  estate  is  President's  Lane, 
a  lovely  shaded  road  which  leads  to  the  other 
Adams  houses.  It  is  better,  however,  to  cross 
the  bridge  over  the  railway,  whence  it  is  a 
short  distance  to  the  centre,  or  Quincy  Square. 
A  pleasant  walk  it  is,  too,  for  this  suburban  city 
is  a  delightful  mixture  of  town  and  country. 
Great  trees  arch  the  streets,  and  under  their 
shade  the  fine  old  dwellings  are  interspersed 
with  shops,  churches,  banks,  and  schools. 

The  Square  is  the  heart  of  Quincy ;  from  it, 
like  arteries,  the  streets  lead  in  all  directions, 
and  through  them  pulses  a  very  modern  life. 

How  busy  it  is  with  the  trolley  cars  whisk- 
ing about  everywhere,  flashing  and  clanging  ! 
And  beside  all  this  bustling,  noisy  activity, 
as  if  to  emphasize  it  by  deep  sharp  contrast, 
lies  the  quiet  old  mouldering  burying  ground 
with  its  heaped  turf  and  crumbling  stones. 
Here,  in  their  narrow  beds  amongst  the  fore- 
fathers, sleep  Josiah  and  Edmund  Quincy  and 
that  stalwart  patriot,  John  Hancock. 


Dorothy  Q. 


Quincy.  53 

Well  cared  for  is  the  old  place  now,  but 
neglect  fell  upon  it  for  a  long  time;  for  years 
the  weeds  choked  its  borders,  the  cows 
grazed  among  its  broken  and  tottering  head- 
stones and  trampled  down  the  forgotten 
graves.  Many  of  the  oldest  monuments 
were  by  this  means  lost,  and  to-day  the 
oldest  stone  dates  back  to  only  1666,  al- 
though the  graveyard  is  contemporary  with 
the  earliest  settlement. 

Two  gates  give  entrance  to  its  quiet  from 
the  busy  street.  Over  one  is  the  grim  re- 
minder, "  Dust  thou  art  and  unto  dust  shalt 
thou  return."  But  it  seems  a  good  omen 
that  over  the  one  usually  opened  is  arched 
the  beautiful  promise,  "  This  mortal  shall  put 
on  immortality." 

Across  the  square  in  the  deep  shade  of 
trees  the  Stone  Temple  rises  sedately  from 
its  tiny  greensward.  Aloft  it  bears  a  cupola 
fashioned  like  a  small  pagan  temple,  and  its 
grim  sombre  granite  is  capped  by  dusky 
gold.  This  edifice  is  the  Unitarian  church, 
and  it  stands  on  a  remnant  of  the  old  train- 


54  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

ing-ground.  It  is  called  the  Stone  Temple 
because  'twas  built  of  granite  taken  from 
quarries  given  to  the  town  by  Ex-President 
John  Adams,  who  requested  that  a  "temple  ' 
should  be  erected  from  their  stone.  In  the 
church  are  the  tombs  of  the  two  presidents, 
and  monuments  of  the  Adams  family. 

Indeed  one  can  hardly  turn  about  in 
Quincy  without  seeing  something  to  remind 
him  of  the  Adams  or  the  Quincy  family,  and, 
in  fact,  the  history  of  the  town  is  in  a  great 
measure  a  history  of  these  two  illustrious 
families.  The  city  itself  is  named  after 
Colonel  John  Quincy,  and  one  part  of  the 
people,  not  content  to  honor  one  family,  have 
called  their  locality  Quincy-Adams. 

The  best  monument  to  the  Quincy  family 
would  have  been  the  preservation  of  the 
Quincy  homestead.  This  old  mansion,  much 
altered  and  fallen  in  estate,  may  be  reached 
from  the  Square  by  going  toward  Boston  on 
Hancock  Street.  It  stands  just  beyond  the 
High  School,  where  Furnace  Brook  slips 
under  the  road  by  some  giant  willows  where 


Quincy  House. 


Quincy.  57 

a  double  row  of  trees  marks  what  seems  to 
have  been  an  old  garden  walk  along  the 
stream's  bank. 

The  poor  old  house  where  "  Dorothy  Q  " 
was  born  and  in  which  generations  of  the 
Quincys  have  lived  and  died  has  the  very 
air  of  neglect  and  desertion.  Straggling 
weeds  and  rank  have  crept  over  the  driveway 
once  so  trim,  so  neat.  Choked  by  them  too 
are  all  the  garden  walks  and  the  formal  old- 
fashioned  flower-beds  ;  over  their  bent  and 
tangled  stalks  brood  the  venerable  lilacs,  still 
flanking  the  quaint  old  doorway.  Beside  the 
antique  panelled  door  with  its  ponderous 
knockers  and  staring  bull's  eyes  of  turbid 
glass,  there  still  stands  some  of  the  old  bor- 
dering box.  Unkempt  it  is  now,  but  digni- 
fied by  the  growth  of  many  years,  for  this 
slowest  of  growing  plants  now  out-tops  the 
tallest  man. 

The  house  itself  has  been  disfigured  by 
clumsy  and  ugly  additions;  yet  amid  these 
modern  barbarities  you  may  find  bits  of 
background  wholly  of  the  past,  and  in  fact 


58  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

some  portions  date  back  to  1634.  Even 
above  the  eaves  the  old  lilacs  tower ;  matted 
and  branch-bound,  they  blotch  with  violet 
shadows  the  gray  walls  and  old  windows,  and 
fret  the  many  paned  sashes,  pied  with  the  pale 
pinks,  the  amber  greens,  and  amethysts  of 
ancient  glass=  But  their  tints  no  longer  color 
the  landscape  and  stain  the  sky  to  outlooking 
Quincy  eyes ;  the  inside  shutters  are  closed, 
and  against  this  panelled  white,  the  panes 
reveal  their  minor  harmonies  to  the  peering 
stranger. 

At  the  side  of  the  house,  where  a  rickety 
bridge  now  spans  the  brook,  was  a  flight  of 
stone  steps  to  a  boat-landing,  for  Furnace 
Brook  widened  here  into  Black's  Creek, 
and  a  great  convenience  it  must  have  been 
to  have  at  one's  door  a  thoroughfare  to  that 
great  highway,  the  sea;  for  in  the  early 
days  all  communication  between  the  settle- 
ments was  by  water. 

The  first  comers  to  Quincy  settled,  as  was 
the  custom,  close  to  the  shore,  and  not  far 
from  this  old  house,  toward  the  Bay  is  Merry 


Quincy. 


59 


Mount  where  the  famous  Maypole 
was  set  up  in  the  days  of  King 
Charles.  Here  it  was  that  Captain 
Wollaston  settled  in  1625.  And 
from  here  he  set  sail,  after  a  year's 
hard  trials,  discouraged  and  strait- 
ened in  circumstances,  to  try  and 
retrieve  his  fortune  in  Virginia;  for 
the  adventure  was  not  happy,  and 
the  story  of  its  early  days  is  one  of 
trouble  and  disappointment. 

The  settlement  was  left  in  charge 
of  a  Lieutenant  Pitcher  and  a  small 
company.  To  them  came  one  who 
was  destined  to  weave  into  the  fab- 
ric of  New  England's  early  history 


60  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

a  few  threads  of  vivid  dye,  gaudy,  if  not  well 
spun.  This  individual  was  one  "  Mr.  Mor- 
ton a  lawyer "  (who  had  been  a  kind  of 
pettifogger  of  Furnefell's  Inne).1  He  was, 
if  Governor  Bradford  may  be  believed,  a 
pestilent  fellow  and  a  troubler  of  the  country. 
Of  course  Governor  Bradford  was  not  unpreju- 
diced, but  Morton  really  seems  to  have  been  a 
good  deal  of  an  adventurer.  However,  he  was 
no  common  one,  for  he  was  educated,  tal- 
ented, and,  above  all,  whimsical  and  pictur- 
esque. Devoted  was  he  to  all  the  follies  and 
vanities  of  Merrie  England,  which  included, 
from  the  Plymouth  standpoint  (it  has  been 
said),  "The  Book  of  Common  Prayer." 
Naturally  he  had  no  sympathy  with  either 
Puritan  or  Pilgrim,  and  if  he,  too,  in  common 
with  them,  sought  any  liberty,  it  was  surely  not 
that  of  conscience  nor  religion.  For  in  the 
plague-swept  fields  of  the  Massachusetts,  and 
the  silent  shadowy  paths  of  the  primeval 

1  Bradford's  History.  Morton  called  himself  "  Of 
Clifford's  Inn,  Gent.,"  and  Samuel  Maverick  says  that  he 
was  "  a  gentleman  of  qualitie." 


Lard  of  Misrule. 


Quincy.  63 

forests,  his  heart  turned  not  to  God,  but  longed 
for  the  license  of  the  old-world,  and  his  nimble, 
scheming  brain  visioned  a  little  realm  where 
the  jollity  of  English  wake  and  fair  and  revel 
might  be  enjoyed  and  fostered  under  his 
especial  care. 

So,  with  his  brain  all  fancy-stuffed,  he 
craftily  enticed  the  Captain's  servants,  and 
conspired  with  them,  until,  taking  opportunity 
they  "  thrust  Lavetenante  Pitcher  out  a  dores." 

Then  did  Morton  make  himself  Lord  of 
Misrule,  and  set  up  a  Maypole  on  Mount 
Wollaston,  80  feet  high,  topped  with  a  buck's 
horns  and  decked  with  flowers.  On  it,  too,  he 
hung  pagan  conceits  and  gallantries  in  his 
own  verse,  for  to  his  other  accomplishments 
he  added  that  of  rhyming. 

But  a  Maypole  was  of  little  use  to  a  lot  of 
men,  and  so,  as  there  were  no  fair  English 
girls  at  hand  (Hawthorne  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding),  he  and  his  men  were  forced 
to  revel  alone,  or  to  beguile  the  Indian  women 
thereto.  They  did  not  revel  alone,  you  may 
be  sure. 


64  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

How  strange  this  motley  assembly  must 
have  looked,  capering  about  the  Maypole  on 
the  lonely  hill  overlooking  the  lonely  bay 
and  the  lonely  fields  and  forests  !  Surely  not 
a  pleasant  sight  to  the  Pilgrims  was  it,  for 
thus  does  Bradford  describe  it,  "  After  this 
they  fell  to  great  licenciousness,  and  led 
into  a  dissolute  life,  powering  out  them  selves 
into  all  profaneness.  .  .  .  As  if  they  had  anew 
revived  &  celebrated  the  feasts  of  ye  Roman 
Goddes  Flora,  or  ye  beasly  practieses  of  yc 
madd  Bacchinalians."  Then  they  changed 
the  name  of  their  place  to  Merie-mounte,  "  as 
if  this  joylity  would  have  lasted  ever." 

To  maintain  their  prodigality,  they  sold  to 
the  Indians  arms  and  ammunition,  —  a  com- 
merce king-forbidden.  And  besides  furnish- 
ing their  red  brothers  with  firearms,  they  also 
kept  him  in  fire-water  and  themselves  set  a 
great  example  of  drunkenness.  So,  says 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  Mount  Wollaston 
was  the  first  recorded  instance  of  what  was 
known  in  later  Massachusetts  history  as  "  a 
liquor  nuisance."  Thus  the  settlement  be- 


Cut  down  the  Maypole." 


Ouincy.  67 

came  not  only  a  scandal,  but  a  continual 
danger  and  menace  to  both  colonies. 

Then  the  settlers  scattered  about  the  Bay, 
though  they  were  all  Episcopalians  and  gen- 
erally held  themselves  aloof  from  the  men  of 
Plymouth,  besought  aid  of  them  that  the  mis- 
chief at  Merrie-mounte  might  be  stopped. 
To  this  entreaty  the  Pilgrims  turned  not  a 
deaf  ear,  and  forthwith  despatched  Miles 
Standish  and  a  small  guard  to  take  the  defi- 
ant Morton  captive  by  force. 

This  was  easily  done,  for  the  Maypole  crew 
were  fortified  only  with  Dutch  courage,  Mor- 
ton himself,  though  boastful  and  haughty,  was 
but  overloaded  with  it,  and  had  in  his  drunk- 
enness rammed  his  gun  half  full  of  powder 
and  balls. 

So  he  was  easily  disarmed  and  humbled  by 
the  Captain  whom  he  had  reviled  with  scoffs 
and  scorns,  and  reduced  at  last  to  the  petty 
and  spiteful  revenge  of  calling  his  captor 
Captain  Shrimp. 

After  the  encounter,  Morton  was  shipped 
back  to  England,  and  the  Pilgrims'  task  was 


68  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

done,  for  it  is  to  be  noted  that  they  pushed 
not  the  business  farther  then  to  deliver  the 
country  of  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  and  to 
stop  the  sale  of  weapons  to  the  Indians. 
After  admonishing  the  others,  they  left  them 
to  their  own  devices  and  returned  home. 

Not  so  did  the  Puritans,  however ;  for  Endi- 
cott  soon  visited  the  Mount,  cut  down  the 
Maypole,  and  rebuked  its  votaries  roundly, 
declaring  in  plain  words  that  if  there  was  not 
better  walking  he  would  make  "  their  Merry- 
mount  a  woful  mount  for  them."  Thereupon 
the  colonists  mended  their  ways  and  changed 
the  name  of  their  abiding  place  to  Mount 
Dagon,  a  name  that  endured  not. 

A  romantic  interest  has  always  clung  to 
these  Maypole  days  at  Merrie-mounte.  Haw- 
thorne gives  a  highly  fanciful  account  of  them 
in  "  Twice  Told  Tales."  But  in  spite  of  all  the 
glamour  that  such  a  master  of  romance  may 
weave  into  this  episode  of  scarlet  and  tinsel, 
one  will  never  regret  that  the  victory  was 
with  Standish  and  Endicott.  Perhaps  I  may 
close  aptly  with  the  words  of  Governor  Brad- 


Christ  Church  Fountain. 


Quincy.  71 

ford  :  "  But  I  have  been  too  long  aboute  so 
unworthy  a  person  and  so  bad  a  cause." 

To  many  the  old  Adams  houses,  birth- 
places of  the  presidents,  will  be  the  most  in- 
teresting sights  in  Quincy.  To  reach  them 
we  must  return  to  the  Square,  and  follow 
Hancock  Street  in  the  other  direction.  It  is 
worth  while  to  examine  Christ  Church  on  the 
way.  Before  it  stands  a  curious  drinking 
fountain,  surmounted  by  a  cross  and  lantern, 
and  decorated  with  scriptural  texts  and  a 
representation  of  our  Saviour.  It  is  as  use- 
ful as  it  is  picturesque,  and  recalls  the  wayside 
shrines  of  the  old  world. 

Turn  to  the  right  from  Hancock  Street 
opposite  this  fountain.  Notice  on  the  left 
the  old  churchyard  of  Christ's  Church  in 
Braintree,  New  England  (for  Quincy  was  a 
part  of  Braintree),  where  stood  the  first  house 
of  worship  from  A.D.  1727  to  A.D.  1833,  and 
are  buried  the  founders  of  the  church  and 
many  of  their  descendants. 

The  car  tracks  guide  us  straight  to  the  two 
old  Adams  houses.  They  stand  on  a  little 


72  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

delta  of  desolate  land  by  the  side  of  the  road, 
close  together.  Little  ground  has  been 
spared  them,  and  that  is  barren.  Rude  stiles 
and  a  few  shrubs  soften  slightly  the  grimness 
of  the  John  Adams  House,  standing  gable  end 
to  the  street  and  facing  its  junior.  In  it 
John  Adams  was  born.  It  has  been  restored 
by  the  Adams  Chapter  of  the  D.A.R. 

The  other  old  house,  with  a  picturesque 
leanto  and  well-sweep,  is  called  the  cottage. 
It  was  "  the  home  of  John  and  Abigail 
Adams.  Here  goodwife  Abigail  wrote  let- 
ters that  time  has  not  dimmed.  John  Quincy 
Adams  was  born  here  in  1767."  The  house 
was  built  in  1716,  and  was  restored  in  1896 
by  the  Quincy  Historical  Society.  Both  the 
houses  are  open  in  the  afternoon,  and  may  be 
seen  for  a  fee. 

Our  sincere  thanks  and  gratitude  are  due  to 
the  societies  which  have  rescued  these  old 
landmarks  from  destruction.  It  is  a  pity  that 
the  surroundings  are  so  singularly  incongru- 
ous and  unfortunate.  However,  both  the 
houses  are  exceedingly  interesting  inside  and 


Quincy  Adams  was  born  here. 


Quincy.  75 

out,  and  if  they  seem  forlorn  and  woe-begone, 
clinging  dejectedly  to  their  foundations,  I  have 
no  doubt  that  in  time,  when  they  have  had  a 
little  garden  care  and  the  companionship  of 
vine  and  flower  and  shrub,  they  will  become 
more  home-looking  and  seem  a  little  less 
like  relics. 

In  Quincy  all  roads  lead  to  the  Square,  and 
so  we  must  return  there  to  resume  our  jour- 
ney. This  time  we  take  the  broad  road  be- 
hind the  Stone  Temple,  at  the  side  of  which 
stands  the  Crane  Memorial.  This  fine  build- 
ing was  given  to  the  city  by  and  is  so  named 
after  Thomas  Crane,  a  Quincy  stone-cutter 
who  coined  a  fortune  out  of  his  town's  granite 
ledges.  One  needs  not  to  be  told  that  it  was 
designed  by  Richardson.  His  thumb-marks 
are  all  over  it.  How  strikingly  different  is 
this  Romanesque  style  to  anything  else  in  New 
England  !  But  in  our  hodgepodge  of  styles 
nothing  seems  incongruous.  The  hall's  in- 
terior, with  its  stately  mantel,  its  oaken  wains- 
coting, and  dusky  magnificence  of  stamped 
leather,  is  rich  and  fine  and  worth  seeing. 


76 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


Along  the  level 
road  to  Weymouth 
there  are  occasion- 
ally glimpses  of  the 
bay  and  the  thickly 
clustered  cottages  at 
Nantasket  and  Hull. 
At  Quincy  Point,  un- 

•der  fine  elms,  is  a  group  of  old  fashioned  man- 
sions with  great  square  chimneys  whose  rigid 
lines  are  softened  by  vines.  Then  you  come 
to  the  bridge  over  Fore  River,  across  which 
lies  Weymouth. 


John  Adams  House. 


THE  view  is  pretty  only  at  high  tide.  Up 
the  river  are  green  hills,  partly  grove  and 
orchard  clad ;  down-stream  black  coal 
pockets,  brown  headlands,  barren  islands, 
a  few  old  stranded  wrecks,  and  hundreds  of 
little  cottages  huddled  together  in  seaside 
promiscuity. 

This  bleak  desolation  was  not  when  the 
Charity  and  the  Swan  sailed  up  the  flood 
with  the  first  settlers.  Of  the  landscape  in 
those  days  Morton  wrote,  in  his  quaint  de- 
lightful way,  "  When  I  had  seriously  consid- 
ered of  the  beauty  of  the  place  with  all  her 
fair  indowments,  I  did  not  thinke  that  in  all 
the  knowne  world  it  could  be  paralel'd.  For 
so  many  goodly  groves  of  trees ;  dainty  fine 


78  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

hillucks,  delicate  faire  large  plaines,  sweet 
cristallfountainesand  cleare  running  streams, 
that  twine  in  fine  meanders  through  the 


The  Fore  River. 


meads,  making  so  sweete  a  murmuring  noise 
to  heare  as  would  even  lull  the  senses  with 
delight  a  sleepe. " 

To   this   region   then   called   Wessagusset 
came  in  1622  Weston's  colony,  —  a  brawling, 


Weymouth.  79 

profane  crew,  "  rude  fellows  made  choice  of  at 
all  adventures,  "  whom  Governor  Bradford 
considered  unfit  for  honest  men's  company. 
As  might  have  been  expected,  these  roughs 
were  soon  in  hot  water.  After  robbing  the 
Pilgrims,  they  squandered  their  own  stores, 
and  were  soon  at  the  mercy  of  the  Indians, 
and  became  but  little  more  than  slaves  to 
them.  At  menial  tasks  they  worked  for  the 
savages,  or  wandered  about  the  shore,  half 
naked  and  half  starved. 

But  their  misery  bred  only  contempt  in  the 
hearts  of  their  savage  masters,  who  resolved 
to  slaughter  them.  This  they  could  have 
easily  done,  but  they  dreaded  the  punishment 
by  the  Pilgrims,  which  they  knew  was  sure  to 
follow.  So  they  conspired  with  the  tribes 
near  by  to  massacre  also  the  little  colony  at 
Plymouth.  It  was  this  conspiracy,  as  well  as 
the  danger  menacing  the  miserables  at  Wey- 
mouth, that  brought  Standish  here  in  1623, 
resolved  to  deliver  the  colonists  and  punish 
the  natives. 

The  little  Captain  set  out  with  only  eight 


80  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

men.  His  small  force  met  open  defiance. 
After  a  short  parley  with  the  Indians,  Watta- 
wamat  sprang  before  the  others,  shouting, 

"  'Who  is  there  to  fight  with  the  brave  Wattawamat,' 
Then  he  unsheathed  his  knife,  and,  whetting  the 

blade  on  his  left  hand, 
Held  it  aloft  and  displayed  a  woman's  face  on  the 

handle, 
Saying,  with  bitter  expression  and  look  of  sinister 

meaning : 
'  I  have  another  at  home,  with  the  face  of  a  man  on 

the  handle ; 
By  and  by  they  shall    marry;    and    there  will   be 

plenty  of  children  ! ' 
Then  stood  Pecksnot  forth,  self-vaunting,  insulting 

Miles  Standish; 
While  with  his  finger  he  patted  the  knife  that  hung 

at  his  bosom, 
Drawing  it  half  from  its  sheath,  and   plunging  it 

back,  as  he  muttered, 
'  By  and  by  it  shall  see;  it  shall  eat;  ah,  ha  !  but 

shall  speak  not ! 
This  is  the  mighty  Captain  the  white  men  have  sent 

to  destroy  us ! 
He  is  a  little  man ;  let  him  go  and  work  with  the 

women ! '" 1 

1  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,  Longfellow. 


Wattcrwamat. 


Weymouth.  83 

But  little  did  this  boasting  avail  him,  for 
with  that  very  knife  did  Standish  slay  him 
in  single  combat.  Wattawamat  was  also 
killed,  and  five  others. 

Following  the  English  custom,  Watta- 
wamat's  head  was  cut  off,  carried  back  to 
Plymouth  by  Standish,  and  set  on  a  pike, 
there  to  scowl  from  the  fortress  church. 

Thus  the  conspiracy  was  defeated,  and 
the  colony  was  delivered  of  a  great  danger. 
"  By  ruthlessly  murdering  seven  men,"  says 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  "Standish  re-estab- 
lished the  moral  ascendency  of  the  whites, 
and  so  saved  the  lives  of  hundreds." 

With  the  Plymouth  men  departed  what 
remained  of  VVeston's  colony,  and  "  thus  in 
failure,  disgrace,  and  bloodshed  ended  the 
first  attempt  of  a  settlement  at  Weymouth."1 

This  was,  next  to  Plymouth,  the  oldest 
settlement  in  Massachusetts.  As  early  as 
1635  the  Fore  River  was  crossed  by  a  ferry 
with  rates  established  by  law.  It  is  not  far 
from  the  bridge  to  Bicknell  Square,  where 
1  Charles  Francis  Adams. 


84 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


stands   the   old    Bicknell    homestead.      Just 
beyond,  perched  above   the   State  Road,  is 


The  Smith  Parsonage. 

the  old    Smith    parsonage, 
which  was  moved  from  its 
original  site,  and  is  much 
changed.       In    it    Abigail 
Smith   Adams   was    born,    and    here    John 
Adams  came  a-courting.     Her  father,  the  vil- 
lage parson,  frowned  upon  the  future  presi 


Weymouth.  85 

dent's  suit,  and  the  neighbors  even  did  not 
consider  an  Adams  quite  good  enough  for  a 
Smith  of  Old  Spain.  But  even  in  those 
times  of  strait-laced  sordidness,  love  found 
the  way,  and  the  parson's  daughter,  with 
a  will  as  strong  as  his  own,  became  Mrs. 
Adams,  and  in  time  added  to  the  glory  of 
being  a  Smith  by  becoming  the  first  lady 
of  the  land  and  the  mother  of  a  president. 
It  is  a  tradition  of  the  family  that  with  her 
own  hands  she  scrubbed  the  floor  of  her 
bedroom  the  afternoon  before  her  eldest 
son,  John  Quincy  Adams,  was  born. 

This  part  of  Weymouth  is  called  Old 
Spain.  Why  or  when  it  was  so  named  there 
is  not  even  a  tradition  to  explain.  It  is 
neither  ancient  nor  Spanish  in  appearance ; 
but  a  pretty  village  under  branching  elms, 
and  bustling  with  New  England  thrift  and 
neatness. 


BEYOND  Old  Spain  and  the  Back  River, 
the  road  is  long  and  lonesome,  and  hedged 
in  by  woods  all  the  way  to  Hingham.  But 
just  before  the  town  is  entered,  blue  patches 
of  its  harbor  show  through  the  white  birches. 
Up  its  winding  channel  in  1633  sailed  the 
ship  Diligent,  the  Mayflower  of  this  settle- 
ment. As  most  of  the  newcomers  came 
from  Hingham  in  Norfolk,  they  named  their 
new  home  after  the  old. 

Soon  the  quiet  village  green  is  reached, 
delta-like  under  great  green  elms,  sur- 
rounded by  old  fashioned  houses  and  a 
church  with  quaint  belfry.  At  the  right  is 
the  home  of  General  Benjamin  Lincoln.  This 
distinguished  Revolutionary  officer  rose  to 
the  rank  of  Major-General,  and  also  served 
as  Secretary  of  War.  In  the  quiet  Hingham 


Hingham. 


Home  of  General  Lincoln. 


streets  he  must  have  cut 
quite  a  figure.  He  was 
very  fat  in  his  later  years, 
making  up  in  breadth 

what  he  lacked  in  height.  He  walked  about 
with  a  tall  cane  ;  his  coat  was  blue  with  large 
gilt  buttons  ;  and  he  wore  a  buff  waistcoat 


88  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

and  the  small  clothes  of  the  period.  He 
always  wore  Hessian  boots,  and  an  enormous 
cocked  hat  put  the  finishing  touch  of  mag- 
nificence and  dignity  to  his  appearance. 

But  all  this  grandeur  was  in  his  old  age 
marred  by  a  strange  affliction.  In  his  chaise, 
at  table,  in  military  council,  even  while  stand- 
ing, he  would  fall  asleep,  sound  and  snoring. 
You  may  imagine  what  a  fortress  the  family 
pew  in  the  "  Old  Church  "  was  to  him,  and 
how  impregnable  to  the  assaults  of  the 
preacher. 

Beyond  the  general's  house,  and  high  above 
the  present  road,  is  another  Lincoln  mansion, 
not  quite  so  much  altered.  It  still  retains  an 
antique  look,  and  was  once  a  roadside  inn. 

The  Lincolns  of  Hingham  have  always  had 
a  part  in  making  the  town's  noblest  history, 
and  from  this  sturdy  family  have  come  some 
of  the  great  men  of  the  nation,  foremost 
among  them  the  martyred  and  great  presi- 
dent, Abraham  Lincoln. 

Close  to  the  common  is  the  village  square, 
once  called  Broad  Bridge,  and  where  in  old 


Major-General  Lincoln. 


Hingham.  91 

days  stood  the  stocks  and  pillory  for  evil- 
doers. From  it  leads  Main  Street,  beautifully 
shaded  by  magnificent  elms  that  droop  over 
picturesque  cottages  and  fine  old  mansions. 

Just  beyond  a  grand  old  elm  that  towers 
over  a  quaint  little  home  is  the  Derby  Acad- 
emy, and  in  front  of  it,  on  a  hill  since  levelled 
to  grade  the  street,  stood  once  the  first  church, 
erected  in  1635.  Surrounded  it  was  by  a 
"  pallisado,"  but  from  its  top  no  cannon 
frowned,  as  at  Plymouth ;  for  a  belfry  rose 
there  from  the  first  and  sent  its  brazen  call 
to  prayer  into  the  depths  of  the  dark  forest. 

About  its  walls  on  the  hillside  were  laid  to 
rest  the  early  dead.  And  here  they  reposed 
for  two  centuries  in  mouldering  peace,  when 
they  were  removed  to  the  cemetery  close  by, 
and  a  monument  was  erected  over  them  by 
the  town  in  1839. 

For  forty-five  years  this  rude  "  pallisadoed  " 
temple  answered  every  purpose,  but  by  1679 
the  town  had  so  outgrown  it  that  it  was  agreed 
"  to  build  a  new  meeting-house  with  all  con- 
venient speed." 


92  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

After  much  wrangling  and  great  dispute, 
embroiling  even  the  Governor  and  Magistrates 
at  Boston,  the  present  site  was  fixed  upon, 
and  there  the  church  stands  to-day,  the  oldest 
house  of  public  worship  in  the  original  limits 
of  the  United  States. 

The  outside  of  the  meeting-house  must 
look  to-day  much  as  it  did  in  the  old  time ; 
but  the  interior  has  suffered  many  changes 
from  time  to  time.  At  first  the  inside  was  all. 
open  to  the  roof,  against  which  the  rafters 
and  braces  drew  a  stout  oaken  tracery.  There 
was  no  plaster,  and  the  walls  were  clapboarded 
inside  and  out.  There  was  a  gallery  on  one 
side  and  also  at  both  ends.  In  that  at  the 
east  sat  the  maids,  glancing  shyly  across  to 
the  opposite  gallery,  where,  safely  corralled 
together,  sat  their  longing  swains.  On  the 
oaken  seats  and  benches  below  sat  the  married 
folk  and  elders,  the  men  on  one  side  and  the 
women  on  the  other.  Well  filled  the  seats 
were,  for  it  cost  a  peck  of  corn  to  stay  away 
from  service,  or  to  leave  before  it  was  finished. 
About  everything  really  old  has  gone, 


Hingham.  93 

except  the  pulpit;  but  the  church  to-day  has 
a  proper  air  of  staid  old-fashioned  dignity. 

One  curious  feature  is  the  bell-rope,  dang- 
ling over  the  middle  of  the  central  aisle.  In 
Mr.  Gladstone's  church  at  Havvarden,  the 
belfry  is  also  over  the  centre  of  the  edifice, 
but  the  bells  are  rung  from  the  ceiling  above; 
still  there  's  a  trap-door  beneath  them,  and 
through  it  I  have  caught  comical  glimpses  of 
the  legs  of  the  ringers,  and  their  vigorous 
genuflections. 

It  makes  one  shiver  to  think  that  in  1792 
it  was  voted  "  to  take  down  the  meeting-house 
and  build  a  new  one."  Fortunately  this  pur- 
pose was  abandoned,  and  so  the  antique  treas- 
ure, consecrated  for  so  many  years  to  the 
worship  of  the  Almighty,  has  been  preserved 
to  us,  a  holy  inheritance. 

Close  by  the  church,  in  the  oldest  part  of 
the  cemetery,  is  the  tomb  of  Major-General 
Lincoln,  and  near  by  is  a  monument  to  the 
first  settlers  of  Hingham,  whose  bones  were 
removed  here  from  the  old  palisaded  church- 
yard. 


94  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Beyond,  in  the  modern  part  of  the  grounds, 
is  a  fine  monument  to  the  great  war  governor 


An  Antique  Treasure.  _£  -    (a^'V"       ^ 

-*r~ 

(T 

of  Massachusetts,  John  Al-         f/X 

bion  Andrew,  and  an  obelisk        T/ 

of  granite  in  memory  of  the 

men  of  Hingham  who  died  in  the  War  of  the 

Rebellion.     But  no  monument  interested  me 

more  than  that   to    Sergeant    Peter   Ourish. 

Youngest  of  all  the  town's  volunteers,  he  died 


Hingham.  95 

of  his  wounds  when  only  nineteen  years  old, 
after  having  fought  in  fifteen  battles,  many 
of  them  the  fiercest  and  most  bloody  of  all 
that  cruel  war. 

From  the  terraced  hills  here,  there  is  a  good 
view  over  the  harbor,  where  occasionally  a 
lonely  coaster  may  be  seen  beating  in  or  out 
the  harbor.  Once  the  little  port  was  all 
activity,  for  a  fleet  of  sixty  sail  of  vessels  hailed 
from  here  fifty  years  ago.  Most  of  them 
were  engaged  in  fishing,  according  to  King 
James,  an  honest  trade  and  the  apostle's  own 
calling. 

I  regret  that  I  cannot  speak  of  the  many 
other  interesting  things  in  Hingham,  but  must 
hurry  on,  calling  attention  as  I  leave  the 
Square  to  the  old  Rev.  Ebenezer  Gay  house. 
Perched  high  above  the  street,  its  walls  vine- 
clad,  and  its  old  well  half  hidden  under  droop- 
ing boughs,  it  has  the  most  interesting  exte- 
rior of  all  in  Hingham  and  an  air  of  real 
antiquity. 

Between  this  old  town  and  Nantasket,  lies 
a  lovely  country,  partly  wooded,  partly 


96  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

marshland,  bordering  a  little  river  that  winds 
by  great  masses  of  purple  rocks  that  hedge 
the  cedared  slopes.  Suddenly,  however, 
comes  the  glare,  the  noise,  the  dust,  the  con- 
fusion of  "  The  Beach  "  Nantasket. 


THIS  has  been  a  pleasure  resort  for  over  a 
hundred  years.  The  oldest  summer  hotel, 
"  The  Sportsman,"  was  the  resort  of  Daniel 
Webster  and  other  distinguished  men.  Until 
within  thirty  or  forty  years,  however,  there 
were  few  houses,  and  the  beach  stretched 
toward  Hull,  lonely,  windswept,  and  barren, 
but  with  the  dignity  of  the  desert.  Now  it  is 
littered  with  an  illy-arranged  assortment  of 
hotels  and  cottages,  between  which  electric 
trains  screech  and  rattle. 

All  sorts  of  entertainment  are  here  pro- 
vided, including,  according  to  a  New  York 
paper,  "  cultured  clams,  intellectual  chowder, 
refined  lager,  and  very  scientific  pork  and 
beans." 

7 


98  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

The  beach  retains  its  old  Indian  name, 
spelled  in  the  early  accounts  Natasco  or 
Nantascot.  Three  hills  dominate  the  length 
of  its  fine  long  sweep,  —  Strawberry,  Saga- 
more, and  Allerton.  These,  as  well  as  the 
plains  at  their  base,  were  in  the  Pilgrim  days 
heavily  wooded.  From  them  the  seamen 
could  have  good  timber  to  repair  their 
weather-beaten  ships  and  make  long  masts 
and  yards.  To-day  not  a  forest  tree  remains, 
and  it  is  worse  than  barren. 

The  first  settlement  was  probably  where 
Hull  now  stands.  Roger  Conant  was  here 
then,  and  so  was  Isaac  Allerton.  The  latter's 
name  is  kept  in  remembrance  by  Point 
Allerton,  and  that  of  his  wife's  family  by  the 
Brewster  islands.  From  time  to  time  Hull  is 
referred  to  as  an  "  uncouth  place,"  or  as  hav- 
ing "  a  straggling  people,"  so  that  we  may 
infer  that  it  was  never  very  prosperous. 

Hull  itself  was  named  for  the  English  town 
of  that  name  in  1644.  With  one  exception, 
it  is  the  smallest  township  in  the  State,  and 
until  quite  lately  contained  but  a  few  people. 


1  As  necessary-as  church  and  preaching" 


Hull.  101 

Its  quota  to  the  Revolution  was  but  three 
men,  and  in  the  present  century  it  could  claim 
no  more  than  twelve  to  eighteen  votes.  An 
old  saying  has  it,  "  As  goes  Hull  so  goes  the 
State." 

In  the  good  old  days  when  every  one,  from 
ministers  and  deacons  down,  considered  flip 
and  toddy  inalienable  rights,  and  as  necessary 
as  church  and  preaching,  this  town  had  but 
one  tavern,  and,  despite  such  monopoly,  this 
important  institution  "  had  custom  barely 
sufficient  to  supply  its  venerable  mistress 
with  the  necessaries  of  life."  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, it  was  not  so  much  the  lack  of  people, 
as  their  sobriety,  that  made  such  hard  lines 
for  the  tavern's  mistress ;  for  the  men  of  Hull 
were  early  zealots  in  the  cause  of  temperance, 
and  as  long  ago  as  1721  voted  to  allow  no 
tavern  to  be  kept  within  its  limits.  Thus 
they  may  have  been  the  first  "  no  license 
town"  in  the  country. 

The  history  of  Hull  is  not  the  history  of  its 
churches,  and  the  succession  of  its  ministers, 
so  much  as  is  the  case  with  other  towns ;  for 


IO2  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

it  seems  to  have  been  without  either  for  great 
lengths  of  time.  Its  small  size,  and  the  rigor 
of  life  there,  would  have  deterred  any  one 
but  a  real  follower  of  Christ  and  his  fisher- 
men apostles  from  settling  within  its  tiny 
borders. 

A  jocular  writer  in  1848  declared  that 
every  townsman  of  Hull  had  a  religion  of  his 
own,  and  that  in  the  small  population  were 
to  be  found,  "  a  slight  sprinkling  of  Mormons 
and  Latter  Day  Saints,  as  well  as  Univer- 
salists,  Baptists,  Calvinists,  Methodists,  Uni- 
tarians, Catholics,  and  Sculpinarians  (a  sect 
who  worship  the  dried  head  of  a  sculpin)." 
This  diversity  of  opinion  he  ventures  to  put 
forth  as  the  reason  why  no  minister  was  then 
settled  there ;  but  he  adds  that  the  last  one 
was  fairly  starved  out,  one  who  when  he 
settled  there  was  a  corpulent  man,  but  who 
left  the  town  to  accept  a  situation  as  a  living 
skeleton.  But  if  the  town  had  no  minister,  it 
had  no  lawyer  and  no  doctor;  so  you  see  it 
must  have  been  spared  much  evil. 

Little  is  left  of  the  old  time.     Here  and 


Hull. 


103 


there  an  old  square  chimney 
rises  among  the  hodgepodge  of 
Queen  Anne  accretions  to  the 
old  cottages,  about  all  that  is 
left  except  the  great  shady 
elms  and  the  hollyhocks  that, 
if  they  do  not  look  old  in  their 
fresh  beauty,  still  look  old- 
fashioned. 

Hull's  greatest  antiquity, 
perhaps,  is  the  ruins  of  the  old 
fort  on  Telegraph  Hill.  In  it 
there  used  to  be  a  well  with  the 
extraordinary  depth  of  ninety 
feet  Years  ago,  when  Boston 
had  a  merchant  marine  under 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  its  in- 
coming vessels  were  signalled 
from  this  eminence  to  the  city 
by  the  use  of  one  hundred  and 
twelve  flags,  one  for  each  ship- 
ping merchant.  It  is  well 
worth  one's  time  to  climb  this 
hill  for  the  magnificent  view  it  commands. 


Hollyhocks, 


IO4  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

The  harbor,  its  approaches,  light-houses,  forts, 
islands,  and  shipping  stretch  inland  to  the 
smoke -wreathed,  dome-crowned  city;  the 
North  Shore  dwindles  away  toward  Cape 
Ann;  the  level  sea  fills  all  the  east;  and 
southward  lies  the  curving  Pilgrim  Shore  to 
which  we  are  bound. 


THE  next  town  is  Cohas- 
set,  and  it  is  most  pleasantly 
reached  by  the  famous  Jeru- 
salem Road,  which,  though 
not  as  beautiful  as  its  rival 
along  the  North  Shore,  is 
still  very  fine.  A  perfect 
road-bed,  it  winds  along  the 
shore,  at  first  far  from  the  sea 
and  out  of  view  of  it.  Across 
the  little  bay  between  it  and  the 
Bay,  there  stretches  a  long  and 
narrow  strip  of  rocks,  once  dot- 
ted with  thickets  of  bayberry  and  wild  rose. 
Now  this  is  covered  by  small  crowded  cot- 
tages that  lift  a  ragged  line  of  rooftrees  and 
gables  of  mixed  paint  diversified. 


io6  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Over  the  curving  road-bed  go  luxurious 
carriages  with  lady  whips  and  liveried  servants, 
landaus  and  barouches  glittering  in  the  sun 
and  brilliant  as  if  with  flowers  from  the 
dresses  and  parasols  of  their  occupants,  —  all 
the  pomp  of  affluence  in  fact.  Meanwhile 
the  air  is  vexed  with  the  rumble  and  screech 
of  plebeian  trolley  cars  across  the  river. 

Overhanging  the  road,  the  great  rounded 
shoulders  and  ramparts  of  the  hills  have  been 
smoothed  off,  and  the  hollows  and  slopes 
coaxed  into  graded,  shaven  lawns.  From  the 
heights,  the  villas  of  the  great  folks  look  over 
the  ragged  sky  line  of  cheap  cottages  to  the 
sea. 

But  when  Green  Hill  and  the  terminus  of 
the  electric  road  is  passed,  the  road  in  rising 
sweeps  toward  the  shore  that  tumbles  to  the 
breakers.  Patches  of  golden  and  emerald 
green  gleam  amid  its  rocky  buttresses,  gray 
white  or  ruddy  and  tawny.  The  ledges  and 
bowlders  are  fringed  by  bronzes  and  browns 
of  clinging  seaweed,  and  these  sombre  tones, 
in  whose  shadows  purple  lingers,  are  in  turn 


Cohasset. 


107 


edged  by  the  dazzling  contrast  of  supreme 
white,  the  flashing  foam  of  surf. 
Bordering  the   road  are  the 


The  Jerusalem  Road. 

"  cottages,"  some  of  them  stately  mansions 
of  stone  or  rambling  composites,  examples 
of  what  we  call  colonial  architecture.  Their 
smooth  lawns,  broken  here  and  there  by 
upheaved  edges,  are  gay  with  scarlet  gera- 


io8  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

niums,  rich  green  woodbine,  and  breeze- 
silvered  poplars,  all  shining  and  glinting 
under  the  sea-sunshine. 

Where  else,  indeed,  are  the  sunbeams  so  in- 
tense or  color  so  brilliant?  Are  not  flowers 
always  brighter  by  the  sea?  Do  not  the 
fluttering  flags,  even,  reveal  tints  gayer  and 
fresher  than  any  they  ever  unfold  elsewhere? 

It  soon  becomes  a  pageant —  this  journey. 
Seaward,  the  foreground  is  dotted  with  islets 
and  flecked  by  white  sails.  Farther  out,  a 
great  ocean  steamer  tears  along,  pushing 
before  her  a  mass  of  snowy  foam,  and  trailing 
behind  long  wreaths  of  smoke ;  slow  barges 
crawl  behind  puffing  tugs;  coasters  spread 
rusty  sails;  and  beyond  all  lies  the  dim  pur- 
ple of  the  North  Shore,  beneath  the  graded 
blue  of  our  clear  New  England  sky,  glorious 
with  the  rolling  cumuli  of  summer. 

There  is  one  beauty  spot  where  the  road 
turns  away  from  this  water  view  by  low  walls 
and  thin  screens  of  sumachs  and  locusts,  till  it 
winds  in  shade  between  hedges  that  flaunt 
gorgeous  trumpet-flowers,  reddening  rose- 


Cohasset  109 

hips,  and  yellow  honeysuckle,  where  the  air  is 
all  perfumed  from  the  masked  flower  gardens 
whose  galleries  of  phlox  and  hollyhocks  rise 
in  tiers  to  the  leaf-screened  verandas. 

Where  the  shade  ends,  the  hedges  frame  a 
picture  of  rocky  islets  and  blue  bays,  curving 
to  purple  pebbly  beaches.  Landward,  the 
dusty  dwindling  road  bounds  calm  ponds, 
dyed  gray  and  green  by  long  drawn  reflec- 
tions of  lichened  rock  and  leafy  trees.  Here 
and  there  only  is  the  smooth  mirror  dashed 
with  deepest  blue,  where  the  sea-breeze  frets 
its  surface. 

How  astonishing  is  the  beauty  of  very 
common  things  !  Here  on  the  edges  of  these 
ponds,  where  the  water  had  receded,  I  noticed 
an  edge  of  stagnant  growth  which,  under  the 
sunbeams,  shone  transfigured  with  all  the 
lustrous  tones  of  copper  and  verd-antique. 
The  beauty  of  color  could  be  matched  only  by 
the  shimmering  reflections  of  antique  Phoeni- 
cian glass.  Heightened  was  this  strange 
loveliness  by  the  bordering  turquoise  and 
azure  of  the  reflected  sky. 


no  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Piled  high  along  the  shore,  bleaching 
wrecks,  with  timbers  wrenched  and  shat- 
tered, attest  the  fury  of  that  great  November 
storm  in  ninety-eight,  when  the  waters  rose  to 
a  height  never  known  before.  During  that  sad 
night,  from  one  of  the  vessels  cast  away  be- 
yond Little  Harbor,  came  some  sailors  up  the 
road  in  search  of  aid  for  their  injured  ship- 
mates. When  at  last  the  doctor  was  found, 
and  they  were  returning  with  him,  however, 
they  discovered  to  their  dismay  that  all  com- 
munication with  the  ship  was  cut  off;  for  the 
sea  was  breaking,  with  deep  violence,  right 
over  the  road  beyond  Kimball's  Point,  and 
that  where  they  had  that  morning  passed  dry- 
shod  was  become  impassable,  smothered  in 
white  foam. 

But  in  summer  weather  this  road  stands 
well  above  the  sea,  and  beyond  from  the 
beach  is  more  like  a  private  drive  than  a 
highway,  for  it  is  lawn-edged  and  winds 
through  groves  till  the  surf's  sound  is  lost, 
and  one  hears  only  the  roll  of  carriages  and 
the  clamp  of  hoofs. 


Cohasset. 


i  ii 


And  when  the  Cohasset  River  is  crossed, 
where  it  winds  through  rocky  gates  and 
"  creeps  into  the  deep  sea's  gulfy  breast,"  a 
mile  of  inland  road,  through  shady  woods, 
leads  to  Cohasset  village,  directly  to  the 


Cohasset  River. 

sequestered  common.  There  in  the  middle 
stands  a  quaint  little  church,  and  all  about 
hundreds  of  beautiful  elms.  Over  all  broods 
the  staid  New  England  quiet. 

The  town  was,  until  1770,  a  precinct  of 
Hingham,  and  reference  is  once  made  to  it,  in 
the  records  of  the  General  Court,  as  "  Cohas- 
set alias  Little  Hingham." 


1 1 2  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Its  name  comes  from  the  Indian  word 
Quonahassit,  meaning  a  long  place  of  rocks. 
And  it  is  aptly  named.  According  to 
Thoreau,  "  It  is  the  rockiest  shore  in  Massa- 
chusetts —  hard  sienitic  rocks  which  the 
waves  have  laid  bare,  but  have  not  been  able 
to  crumble.  It  has  been  the  scene  of  many 
a  shipwreck." 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  these  disasters 
was  that  of  the  brig  St.  John  from  Galway, 
wrecked  on  the  Grampus  Rocks,  October  7, 
1849.  On  board  of  her  were  many  Irish 
emigrants, —  men,  women,  and  children,— 
and  fully  a  hundred  of  them  lost  their  lives. 
A  graphic  description  of  the  sad  scenes  after 
the  storm  is  given  by  Thoreau  in  his  "  Cape 
Cod." 

Drake  says  that,  of  the  recovered  bodies, 
twenty-seven  were  buried  in  the  village  grave- 
yard. This  quiet  old  burying-place  is  not 
far  from  the  common,  and  backs  upon  the 
Old  Harbor,  from  which  it  is  separated  by  a 
fringe  of  melancholy  blasted  pines.  It  is  not 
so  well  kept  but  that  a  "  sweet  neglect " 


Cohasset  Common. 


Coh  asset. 


8  - 

T 
"  Through  the  village.'1'' 

seems  to  brood  over  its  mouldering  stones  and 
the  liberty  of  its  wandering  vines  and  weeds. 
Simple  and  natural  it  is  in  its  half  decay,  but 
lonesome  even  in  the  sunlight. 


n6 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


A  pleasant  street  leads 
through  the  village  to 
the  harbor  and  across 
the  bridge  to  Govern- 


"  Their  home  on  the  little  hill." 


ment  Island,  where  live  the  keepers  of  Mi- 
not's  Ledge  Light  and  their  families.  In 
their  home  on  the  little  hill  many  an  anxious 
heart  must  beat  when  gales  sweep  the  coast, 


Cohasset.  117 

and  the  white  shroud  of  the  winter  night  is 
seared  by  the  trail  of  appealing  rockets; 
many  an  anxious  eye  must  peer  forth  at 
dawn  to  that  lonely  beacon  rising  beyond  the 
breakers  in  the  dark,  wrathful  sea. 

By  day  its  grim  gray  tower,  and  at  night 
its  flashing  lamp  rise  in  warning  over  one  of 
the  most  treacherous  stretches  of  sand  and 
shoal  and  reef  and  rock  that  ever  fed  with 
wreck  and  corpse  the  cruel  sea. 

The  present  structure  replaces  one  built 
on  iron  piles  which  was  swept  away  in  the 
great  April  storm  of  1851.  The  present 
granite  shaft  is  nearly  a  hundred  feet  high. 
The  lower  forty  feet  are  of  solid  masonry, 
dovetailed  and  bolted  together,  and  into  the 
reef  below  the  sea,  until  it  is  almost  a  part  of 
the  ledge  itself.  It  took  years  to  complete 
the  foundations  alone,  for  there  were  in  all 
the  long  twelve  months  but  a  few  hours 
when  any  work  could  be  done.  On  Govern- 
ment Island  the  great  blocks  were  fashioned, 
and  the  places  of  construction  may  still  be 
seen. 


n8  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Looking  down  the  river,  there  's  a  fine  view 
of  level  stretches,  rock-dotted,  to  Hominy 
Point  and  the  sea.  Inland,  the  river  winds 
by  rocks  and  cottages  toward  North  Scituate, 
and  is  called  the  Gulf. 

Captain  John  Smith  was  the  first  European 
explorer  to  enter  this  harbor,  and  it  was  he 
who  first  recorded  its  name,  Quonahassit,  on 
the  page  of  history.  Here  he  had  a  quarrel 
with  the  Indians,  and,  as  he  sailed  through 
the  narrow  harbor  mouth,  the  savages,  am- 
bushed (probably  at  Hominy  Point),  bade  him 
a  revengeful  farewell  with  a  shower  of  arrows. 

Of  all  the  old  houses  in  Cohasset  I  think 
that  the  most  interesting  is  the  old  Lincoln 
home  on  South  Main  Street,  near  the  Scituate 
line.  It  was  built  by  the  pioneer  Mordecai 
in  1717,  for  his  son  Isaac,  of  whom  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  a  lineal  descendant.  Standing 
as  it  does  on  a  little  hill,  the  old  house  com- 
mands a  delightful  view.  Near  by,  the  street 
is  lined  by  great  elms,  and  through  their  dark 
shade  gleams  the  blue  winding  river  and  the 
lush  green  level  meadows. 


Cohasset. 


119 


If  paint  ever  defiled  the  old  homestead,  all 
trace  of  it  has  long  since  gone,  and  the  gray 


& 


fif  * 

•5. !  7  The  old  Lincoln  House. 

*     rf 


M 


lichened  shingles    are 
worn  as  thin  as  paper 

and  honeycombed  by  time. 

As  one  stands  here  in  its  quiet  precincts, 

there  comes  through  the  rustling  elms  the 


I2O  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

monotonous  beat  of  the  mill  near  by  on  Bound 
Brook,  so-called  because  it  was  the  boundary 
between  the  colonies.  Indeed,  the  brook  and 
its  power  was  Mordecai  Lincoln's  greatest 
wealth,  and  the  real  reason  of  his  settling  here. 
His  house  and  the  old  mill  are  both  gone,  but 
they  stood  about  where  the  new  buildings  are. 
The  proverb  says  that  the  mill  will  never 
grind  with  the  water  that  has  past.  Whether 
Mordecai  disproved  this  saying  or  not,  I  do 
not  know ;  but  it  is  on  record  that  he  man- 
aged, by  an  ingenious  arrangement  of  dams, 
to  make  the  brook  work  six  days  a  week,  de- 
spite the  fact  that  by  any  ordinary  arrange- 
ment it  could  have  furnished  power  for  but 
one  third  of  that  time.  It  must  have  been 
a  sort  of  triple  expansion.  By  trade  the  in- 
genious miller  was  a  blacksmith;  but  he  was 
able  to  turn  his  hand  to  most  anything,  hav- 
ing what  New  Englanders  call  faculty.  One 
should,  if  possible,  visit  the  interior  of  Isaac's 
house,  for  it  is  charmingly  antique.  I  re- 
member, with  much  pleasure  my  visit  there, 
and  the  kindly  courtesy  of  its  owner,  still  a 
Lincoln. 


THE  shore  of  Scituate,  the  next  Pilgrim 
town,  is  far  from  rocky ;  indeed  it  is  one  long 
stretch  of  sand  that  is  raised  in  places  to  low 
cliffs.  The  level  shallows  outlying  these 
beaches  are  as  dangerous  to  vessels  as  the 
granite  tusks  of  Cohasset,  and  many  a  ship's 
bones  have  bleached  upon  the  long  curved 
reaches  of  their  wastes. 

The  great  November  storm  of  1898  was 
felt  in  all  its  force  here,  and  there  remains  on 
Scituate  Beach  a  curious  reminder  of  its  fury. 
This  is  the  wreck  of  the  pilot  boat  Columbia, 
now  converted  into  a  sort  of  Peggotty  sum- 


122 


The  Pilrim  Shore. 


Fourth  Cliff,  Scitttate. 

mer  home.  She 
was  driven  ashore 
here  during  that 

terrible  night,  and  crashed  down  upon  a  sea- 
side cottage.     All  on  board  of  her  were  lost. 
That  night  the  sea   not  only  littered  the 


Scituate.  123 

beaches  with  wreckage,  but  it  also  swept  the 
sands  themselves  about,  undermining  here, 
building  up  there,  or  boldly  cutting  channel 
or  bay  in  the  shore  itself,  thus  making  mar- 
vellous changes.  Hundreds  of  acres  of  valu- 
able lands  were  submerged  or  ruined  in 
places,  while  in  others,  from  the  sea's  bottom, 
wide  fields  were  lifted  above  the  waters. 
Through  the  beach,  just  south  of  the  Third 
Cliff,  in  a  few  hours,  it  cut  a  channel  to  the 
North  River  nearly  two  hundred  feet  wide 
and  sixteen  feet  deep  at  low  water,  besides 
swallowing  up  two  islands  that  lay  in  the 
course  of  its  fury.  On  one  of  these  islands 
four  young  men  were  camping  out;  they 
were  all  lost. 

Back  from  its  beaches,  Scituate  stretches  in 
flat  plains  with  only  an  occasional  hill.  In 
years  gone  by,  these  sparsely  wooded  lands 
were  shaded  by  great  groves  of  black  walnut. 
But  none  of  them  remain  to-day,  the  last  one, 
a  giant  three  feet  in  diameter,  fell  before  the 
woodman's  axe  in  1820. 

Scituate,  called  so  from  Satuit  Brook,  was 


124  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

settled  'tis  said,  by  "  Men  of  Kent"  in  1628, 
and  in  growing  it  drew  new  blood  from  both 
the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans,  lying  as  it  did 
between  the  Republic  and  the  Commonwealth. 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
this  old  town  was  the  richest  in  the  colony. 
Now  it  has,  as  it  was  described  fifty  years 
ago,  "  the  appearance  of  stillness  and  retire- 
ment." One  long  street  borders  the  meadow, 
through  which  runs  the  estuary  that  forms 
a  harbor,  safe,  but  difficult  of  access  and 
emptied  by  the  tides.  Seaward,  across  green 
levels,  is  the  sandy  bulwark  that  keeps  off  the 
ocean.  Strewn  from  end  to  end  is  this 
hummocky  beach  with  the  paraphernalia  of 
"  mossing,"  for  that  is  the  principal  occupa- 
tion of  the  people  to-day,  A  few  years  ago 
Scituate  and  the  immediate  coast  furnished 
all  the  Irish  moss  used  in  the  whole  country, 
except  what  was  imported  from  Ireland. 
When  gathered,  it  is  as  green  as  any  weed. 
It  is  then  washed  in  large  tubs,  and  afterward 
bleached  and  dried  in  the  sun. 

Of  all  the  places  in  Scituate,  the  most  inter- 


The  Street,  Scituatc  Harbor. 


Scituate.  127 

esting  to  many  is  "  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket " 
homestead.  It  is  close  to  the  railway  station 
on  a  pretty  little  country  road.  At  one  side 
of  the  way  a  narrow  path  winds,  grass-fringed. 
Crimson  hardhack,  yellow  false  indigo, 
yarrow,  white  and  pink,  bespangle  its  borders, 
and  over  all  these  nod  the  broad  panicles  of 
the  Queen  Anne's  lace.  A  pleasant  walk  it 
is  crossing  close  by  the  railway  over  the  dam 
between 

"  The  wide  spreading  pond,  and  the  mill  that  stood 
by  it." 

The  first  mill  on  this  site  was  erected  in 
1646,  but  before  that  time  there  had  been  a 
windmill  on  the  Second  Cliff. 

All  the  way,  on  either  hand,  lie  the  orchards, 
the  meadows,  and  the  deep-tangled  wildwood, 
so  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  poet. 

The  site  of  the  old  homestead  is  on  the 
Northy  place,  at  the  right  not  far  from  the 
pond,  and  over  its  precincts  the  ancient  well- 
sweep  still  lifts  its  slanting  sign  of  promise. 
There,  shadowed  by  woodbine  and  lilacs,  in 
the  old  well-  the  water,  "  emblem  of  truth," 


128  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

still  swells  crystal  clear,  and  as  delicious  as 
ever.  The  "  old  oaken  bucket"  itself  is  rep- 
resented by  a  successor  bravely  bound  with 
brass,  —  a  gift  from  a  distant  city. 

As  one  stands  here  in  the  quiet  level  land- 
scape, one  can  realize  with  what  longing  the 
heartsick  author  of  the  touching  song  looked 
back  to  the  peace  of  the  old  home.  From  the 
cares,  regrets,  and  disillusions  of  the  city,  his 
fancy  turned  sadly  back  to  his  light-hearted, 
hopeful  childhood. 

He,  Samuel  Woodworth,  was  a  printer  and 
journalist,  and,  like  so  many  of  his  trade  at 
that  time,  was  a  great  wanderer  and  quite  a 
"  Bohemian."  Like  most  men  of  that  sort, 
he  suffered  many  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  It 
was  while  he  was  an  editor  in  the  city  of  New 
York  that  he  wrote  the  song  which  is  his  only 
claim  to  public  remembrance. 

It  is  said  that  the  inspiration  came  to  him 
in  a  popular  bar-room.  He  had  just  taken  a 
drink  of  cognac,  and  as  he  set  down  his  glass 
he  declared  that  it  was  the  finest  drink  in 
the  world. 


"  The  mill  that  stood  by  it." 


Scituate.  131 

"  There  you  are  mistaken,"  said  one  of 
his  comrades,  "  remember  the  old  oaken 
bucket  and  the  clear  cold  water  of  the  old 
well." 

At  this  reminder,  tears  rushed  to  his  eyes, 
and  he  left  the  room.  He  returned  to  his 
desk,  and,  with  a  heart  overflowing  with 
the  recollections  of  innocent  childhood,  he 
quickly  set  down  the  words  that  have  be- 
come so  dear  to  many  others. 

But  peace  has  not  always  been  the  lot 
of  Scituate,  for  in  King  Philip's  War  nine- 
teen houses  and  barns  were  burned  by  the 
Indians,  and  terror  spread  through  its  pre- 
cincts. Right  here,  about  the  mill  and  the 
Northy  farm,  a  savage  fight  occurred. 

On  the  day  of  the  attack  there  sat  in  the 
old  Northy  farmhouse,  Dame  Ewell,  alone 
except  for  her  grandson,  John  Northy,  who 
slept  beside  her  in  his  cradle.  As  she 
looked  out  of  the  windows  toward  Coleman 
Heights,  she  saw  the  savages  running  down 
toward  the  valley.  Thinking  only  of  alarm- 
ing the  garrison,  she  rushed  from  the  house 


132  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

without  ever  thinking  of  the  baby.  But, 
in  the  midst  of  the  battle,  she  remembered 
him,  and  returned  stealthily  amid  its  dangers, 
found  the  little  one  peacefully  sleeping,  and 
carried  him  to  a  place  of  safety. 

Perhaps  the  red  men  had  some  just  cause 
against  the  men  of  Scituate,  for  in  the  early 
days  the  colonists  had  not  hesitated  to 
make  bondsmen  of  their  savage  brothers 
on  various  pretexts.  Later  on,  negroes  were 
possessed  by  all  the  wealthy  families,  and 
slavery  left  perhaps  a  deeper  stain  on  Scit- 
uate than  upon,  any  other  town  of  the 
colonies. 

But  if  the  town  has  not  been  always  so 
peaceful,  neither  has  it  been  ever  so  inactive, 
for  once  it  was  a  busy,  bustling  place  with 
two  harbors,  —  Scituate  Harbor,  already 
mentioned,  and  the  New  Harbor,  as  the  old 
North  River  near  its  mouth  was  called. 

This  river  was  once  lined  with  ship-yards, 
to  which  the  tide  rose  and  fell.  "  Now," 
says  Daniel  E.  Damon,  historian  of  the 
town,  "  its  portals  are  closed  to  the  passage 


Bucket." 


Scituate. 


135 


of  vessels,  the  ship-yards  are  all  gone,  and 
where  once  was  heard  the  sound  of  axe, 
adze,  and  hammer,  all  is  still,  and  the  placid 
stream  sleeps  unbroken  by  any  passing  keel. 


^  *»  TSS* 

"  The  placid  stream  sleeps."" 

Its  beauty  still  remains,  enhanced,  perhaps, 
by  the  fact  that  the  obstructions  at  its  mouth 
keep  it  always  bank-full.  Its  history  is 
largely  the  history  of  ship-building  and 
builders.  Their  achievements  bred  amongst 


136  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

them  naval  heroes  and  patriots."  Here,  in 
1773,  was  built  the  ship  Columbia  that 
gave  its  name  to  the  mightiest  river  that 
flows  into  the  Pacific. 

It  was  into  this  tranquil,  landlocked  water 
that  the  sea  tore  the  deep  channel  already 
mentioned,  which  connected  again  the  river 
with  the  ocean,  after  many  years  of  separa- 
tion. Between  this  new  channel  and  the 
old  mouth  is  stretched  the  long  length  of 
the  fine  beach  that  the  Indians  called  Hum- 
arock.  Once  a  peninsula,  it  is  now  an 
island  five  miles  long  and  one  thousand  yards 
broad. 

Along  its  crest  I  saw  other  and  melan- 
choly witnesses  of  the  power  of  that  great 
November  storm.  High  on  its  pebbly  ridges, 
bleaching  and  mouldering  in  sunshine  and 
rain,  lay  the  great  timbers  of  many  a  wreck. 
Splintered  and  twisted  were  the  great  beams 
of  oak,  and,  wrenched  from  vessels'  sides, 
among  these  timbers,  great  strips  torn  bodily, 
and  now  decaying,  all  in  rusty  tones  of  black 
and  red,  here  and  there  enriched  by  gilded 


Scituate. 


137 


carvings,  remnants  of  former  parade,  but 
all  slowly  yielding  to  the  attrition  of  wind 
and  sand  and  weather.  The  white  rimmed 
ports  that  once  let  in  the  light  and  breeze 


On  Hutnarock  Beach. 

to  cosy  cabins,  now  stare  skyward  like  the 
glazed  eyes  of  a  drowned  man,  —  dead  eyes 
indeed. 

This  coast  is  not  so  stuffed  with  legend 
as  the  North  Shore,  for  Pilgrim  land  was 
never  the  home  of  superstition.  A  certain 
amount  of  that,  and  a  great  deal  of  willing 
credulity,  as  well  as  imagination,  are  neces- 
sary to  the  growth  of  such  wonderful  and 


138  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

generally  gruesome  tales  as  linger  still  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Bay.  Not  even  witch- 
craft itself  was  able  to  fasten  its  clutches  on 
this  community,  although  the  elders,  follow- 
ing the  example  of  all  Christendom,  took 
the  precaution  to  pass  laws  against  it,  and 
even  provided  for  the  punishment  and  ex- 
ecution of  witches. 

Right  here  in  Scituate  it  was  that  this  con- 
tagious error  first  broke  forth,  and  right  here 
it  was  stamped  out  forever  in  the  Pilgrim 
Republic. 

It  seems  that  one  Mistress  Dinah  Sylvester 
of  this  town  declared,  with  many  sacred  oaths, 
that  she  had  seen  her  neighbor,  Goodwife 
Holmes,  in  conversation  with  the  devil.  The 
fiend  in  this  case,  so  she  averred,  came  not  in 
horns  and  cloven  feet,  but  appeared  in  the 
form  of  a  bear  with  whom,  the  accuser  de- 
clared, Mistress  Holmes  deported  herself  in  a 
way  unbecoming  both  to  a  Christian  and  to 
a  bear. 

To  this  accusation  Goodman  Holmes,  who 
stood  stoutly  by  his  wife  and  her  good 


Scituate.  139 

name,  replied  in  a  sensible  way  by  a  suit  for 
slander. 

In  those  days  any  one  charged  with  witch- 
craft stood  in  deadly  peril,  and  it  is  doubtful  if 
in  any  other  Christian  community  at  that  time 
would  the  magistrates  have  shown  so  much 
common  sense  and  simple  justice;  for  after 
hearing  the  case  in  a  thorough  and  dignified 
manner,  as  befitted  its  gravity,  they  found 
Dame  Sylvester  guilty  of  slander,  and  ordered 
her  to  be  publicly  whipped,  or  to  pay  Mr. 
Holmes  £5,  or  to  publicly  confess  her  sin  and 
to  pay  Mr.  Holmes  his  costs  and  charges. 
As  may  be  supposed,  she  chose  the  course 
cheapest,  both  to  her  purse  and  person,  for  to 
such  an  one  it  was  little  abasement  to  acknow- 
ledge herself  a  slanderer  and  backbiter. 
Thus  was  the  delusion  of  witchcraft  warded 
off  for  a  time  by  honest  men. 

But  sixteen  years  later,  another  attempt  was 
made,  and  again  in  Scituate.  Mary  Ingham 
was  denounced  for  having  bewitched  one 
Mehitable  Woodworth,  affecting  her  with  vio- 
lent fits,  and  bereaving  her  of  her  senses  by 


140  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

the  "  help  of  the  devil  in  a  way  of  witchcraft 
or  sorcery."  This  black  charge  Goodwife 
Ingham  denied,  and  put  herself  "  on  trial  of 
God  and  the  Country ! "  Then  a  jury  of 
freemen,  presided  over  by  Governor  Josiah 
Winslow,  rendered  the  only  just  verdict,  but 
at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  —  the 
just  verdict  of  "  Not  Guilty. "  To  them  all 
honor,  these  clear-headed  freemen,  for  with 
this  case  ended  all  attempt  to  inoculate  the 
minds  of  the  Pilgrims  with  the  dread  dis- 
ease that  so  oppressed  and  shamed  other 
peoples. 

And  to  this  poverty  of  tales  of  witches  and 
wizards  we  must  add  the  dearth  of  legends 
horrific,  —  no  ghosts,  no  "  shrieking  woman,  " 
no  spectre  leaguers,  stone-throwing  devils, 
no,  not  even  a  sea  serpent.  Indeed,  the 
traditional  stories  are  mostly  pleasant  ones 
of  historic  persons  or  events,  and  as  simple  as 
the  people,  often  as  quaint.  As  an  instance, 
let  me  quote  the  story  of  an  old  will,  in  which 
one  provision  was,  "To  my  wife  Frances,  one 
third  of  my  estate  during  her  life,  also  a  gentle 


Scituate. 


141 


horse  or  mare,   and  Jemmy  the  Negur  shall 
catch  it  for  her." 

One  who  has  not  travelled  the  roads  that 
lead  to  Plymouth  knows  not  in  what  a  fair 
country  the  Pilgrims  settled.  Too  apt  are  we 


"  And  Jemmy  the  Negur  shall  catch  it  for  her.'" 

always  to  think  only  of  the  bleak  and  dismal 
shore  on  which  they  landed.  There  were 
highways  even  then.  To  be  sure,  they  were 
but  Indian  trails,  but,  though  lonely,  they 
were  lovely,  —  a  sylvan  loveliness,  strange  to 
the  newcomers.  Unlike  the  hedged  lanes  of 
Old  England,  or  the  dyked  paths  of  Holland, 
were  these  forest  ways  through  long  woods  of 


142  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

pine  and  shadow.  But  now  the  way  is  bared 
to  the  sky,  and  is  bound  by  hedges,  not  of 
clipped  thorn  and  holly,  however,  as  in 
Devon  or  Dorset,  but  by  that  charming  nat- 
ural screen  which  of  itself  springs  up  along  the 
gray  stone  boundaries  of  New  England  fields, 
wilful,  wayward,  but  beautiful. 


THUS  bordered,  winds  the  road  to  Marsh- 
field,  an  old  town  that,  as  has  been  truly 
said,  shares  with  Plymouth  the  interest  that 
attaches  to  the  early  home  of  the  Pilgrims. 
Until  1641  it  was  a  part  of  Duxbury,  when  it 
was  set  apart  and  called  Green's  Harbor  or 
Rexham. 

The  road  there  from  Scituate  parallels  the 
shore,  though  not  near  it,  and  soon  after 
crossing  Little's  Bridge,  where  was  the  old 
Indian  Ferry,  later  called  Doggett's  Ferry, 
tortuous  Snake  Hill  is  climbed.  From  its  top, 
one  takes  the  first  glimpse  of  Pilgrim  Land, 
a  grand  view  over  Brant  Rock,  and  the  inter- 
vening valleys  and  marshlands  that  give  the 


144 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


town  its  name.  Saliently  stands  the  monu- 
ment on  Captain's  Hill,  and  far  in  the  distance 
is  the  blue  ridge  of  Manomet. 


On  the  old  White  estate. 


Near  by,  close  to  the  South  River,  and  at 
the  foot  of  a  wild  rough  lane,  is  the  old  White 
estate.  Here  Peregrine  White,  the  first  child 
born  to  the  colony,  raised  his  roof-tree.  Here 
he  brought  his  bride,  and  settled  on  the  land 
given  him  by  his  stepfather,  Governor  Wins- 


Marshfield.  145 

low.  Here  he  lived  for  many  years,  years  of 
toil  and  of  honors,  for  he  held  many  offices  in 
the  service  of  the  people,  and  was  twice 
chosen  a  deputy  to  the  General  Court.  At 
a  green  old  age,  fourscore  and  three,  he 
passed  away,  and  was  buried,  it  is  said,  by 
the  side  of  his  mother,  who  was  the  first 
bride  of  the  colony,  in  the  ancient  burying- 
ground. 

This  estate  remained  in  the  possession  of 
his  descendants  for  six  generations,  until  the 
death  of  Miss  Sybil  White  in  1884. 

The  present  house  is  a  low  ceiled  cottage, 
very  modern  in  appearance  from  the  front, 
but  inside  it  bears  evidence  of  great  age  in 
parts.  It  is  said  to  rest  on  the  original  sills, 
and  to  contain  many  of  the  rough-hewn 
beams,  all  spiked  with  hand-made  nails. 

Like  the  lusty  Peregrine,  who  was  a  fine 
type  of  a  rugged  race,  most  of  the  old  settlers 
seem  to  have  reached  also  an  advanced  age. 
The  most  notable  example  of  long  life  in 
Marshfield  was  the  grandson  of  Governor 
Carver,  who  died  at  the  great  age  of  102.  In 

10 


146  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

1775  he  was  at  work  in  the  field  with  his  son, 
grandson,  and  great-grandson,  the  last  of 
whom  had  in  the  house  an  infant  son,  —  in 
all,  five  generations. 

The  old  burial-ground  where  Peregrine  and 
nearly  all  the  old  settlers  were  buried,  is  well 
worth  a  visit.  It  is  near  the  Webster  place, 
and  commands  a  view  of  the  coast  and  sea ; 
for  it  crowns  a  little  hill,  wind-swept  and 
almost  treeless.  The  old,  old  stones,  leaning 
and  broken,  have  been  worn  by  the  weather 
into  sharp  tusks,  and  the  inscriptions  effaced. 

Here,  as  I  have  said,  by  the  side  of  her  son 
lies  Susanna  White  Winslow,  who  came  over 
in  the  Mayflower.  That  is  the  tradition,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  disbelieve  it.  But  her 
grave  is  unknown,  as  indeed  are  all  the  graves 
of  the  early  settlers.  To  their  memory,  how- 
ever, a  monument  has  been  erected,  and  on 
it  are  inscribed  their  names. 

"  The  weary  pilgrim  slumbers, 

His  resting  place  unknown ; 
His  hands  were  crossed,  his  lids  were  closed, 
The  dust  was  o'er  him  strewn, 


Marshfield. 


The  drifting  soil,  the  mouldering  leaf, 

Along  the  sod  were  blown  ; 
His  mound  has  melted  into  earth, 

His  memory  lives  alone." 

Near  by,  under  a  stone  sculptured  with  a 
coat-of-arms,    lies    the     remains   of    General 
Josiah    Winslow,    half-brother    to   Peregrine 
White.     He  was  the 
first    n  a  t  i  v  e-b  o  r  n 
governor,   and   was 
buried    at    the    ex- 
pense of  the  colony, 
as  a  mark  of  esteem 
and  affection. 

And  here,  in  this 
lonely  burying- 
place,  lies  one  with 
whose  great  fame 

the  name  of  Marshfield  must  always  be  asso- 
ciated, —  Daniel  Webster.  All  that  was  mor- 
tal of  him  rests  in  the  tomb  of  rough  granite 
under  a  marble  slab  on  which  is  cut  his  name 
and  the  epitaph  composed  by  himself  as  he 
lay  on  his  death-bed. 


The  Winslow  Arms, 


148  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

In  death  he  was  not  far  removed  from  his 
loved  home,  for  reached  by  a  short  lane 
through  the  woods  and  by  the  ponds  is  the 
spot  where  his  mansion  once  stood.  Unfor- 
tunately this  old  building  was  burned  down 
over  twenty  years  ago,  and  a  modern  house 
now  stands  on  its  site. 

It  was  here  that  the  great  statesman 
sought  the  quiet  life  of  a  country  home,  amid 
that  rural  beauty  he  so  dearly  loved.  His 
estate  extended  over  two  thousand  acres,  and 
on  it  he  could  enjoy  to  the  utmost  his  taste 
for  farming,  gardening,  and  stock-raising. 
But  the  utilitarian  side  of  a  farmer's  life  was 
not  all  to  him  ;  he  cultivated  as  well  its  beau- 
tiful and  ornamental  part,  for  beside  raising 
the  usual  crops  and  stock,  he  planted  thou- 
sands of  shade-trees  and  a  great  flower  gar- 
den that  stretched  its  bloom  and  fragrance 
between  the  mansion  and  the  sea.  To  his 
smooth  lawns  proud  peacocks  lent  their 
magnificence,  and  rare  and  curious  birds 
and  beasts  added  color  and  interest  to  the 
picture. 


Marshfield.  149 

Here,  in  1852,  amid  the  evidence  of  his 
labors,  and  surrounded  by  his  family  and 
friends,  he  passed  away  in  hopeful  resigna- 
tion. His  last  words  were,  "  I  still  live." 


Proud  Peacocks. 

And,  indeed,  for  such  noble  souls  there  is  no 
death. 

In  his  estate  was  contained  part  of  an  early 
Pilgrim  domain,  the  "  Careswell  "  of  Edward 
Winslow,  who  is  called  the  founder  of  Marsh- 
field.  He  came  here  from  Plymouth  about 
1637,  and  built  what  was  then  the  finest  house 
in  the  colonies. 

Like  Standish,  Winslow  was  of  ancient  and 
noble  lineage,  and  he  was  the  most  accom- 
plished in  worldly  affairs  of  all  the  Pilgrims. 


150  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

A  little  romance  clings  to  his  memory,  for 
he  was  the  first  bridegroom  among  the  new- 
comers. It  was,  however,  not  his  first  mar- 
riage, for  he  had  been  married  in  Holland,  and 
his  wife  Elizabeth  came  with  him  in  the  May- 
flower. Her  gentle  nature  was  soon  crushed 
by  the  rigors  of  that  first  dreadful  winter  in 
the  New  World,  and  she  soon  faded  away 
amid  the  New  England  snows.  His  wedding 
in  Plymouth  was  to  the  widow  Susanna  White, 
whose  husband  had  died  also  during  the 
winter.  She  had  been  a  widow  scarce  twelve 
weeks,  and  Edward  had  mourned  his  wife  but 
seven. 

Mistress  White's  son  Peregrine,  born  in 
Provincetown  Harbor,  was  the  first  child  born 
to  the  colony.  By  her  second  union  she 
had  the  honor,  later,  of  being  the  wife  of  one 
governor  and  the  mother  of  another. 

This  marriage,  according  to  the  manner  of 
the  Pilgrims,  was  a  civil  contract  presided 
over  by  a  magistrate,  "  according  to  ye  laud- 
able custome  of  ye  Low-Cuntries,"  and 
"  followed  by  all  ye  famous  churches  of 


Marshfidd.  151 

Christ  in  these  parts  to  this  time,  —  An0  : 
1646."  1 

Years  afterward,  when  Winslow  was  on  a 
mission  to  England,  the  cruel  Archbishop 
Laud  made  this  marriage,  and  Winslow's 
defence  of  the  colonists'  practice  in  such 
matters,  a  pretext  for  casting  him  into  the 
Fleet  Prison,  where  he  languished  for  seven- 
teen weeks. 

Edward  Winslow,  besides  being  governor, 
served  the  colony  in  many  positions  of  trust 
and  honor,  both  in  the  New  World  and  in  the 
Old.  It  was  he  who  brought  the  first  cattle 
to  Plymouth,  but  not  in  time,  alas,  as  the  poet 
would  have  us  believe,  to  furnish  the  snow- 
white  bull  for  the  wedding  procession  of  John 
Alden  and  Priscilla. 

His  son  Josiah,  born  of  the  second  mar- 
riage and  half-brother  to  Peregrine  White, 
was  the  first  native-born  governor,  and  was 
commander-in-chief  of  the  military  forces  of 
Plymouth  and  the  Bay  colonies. 

A  warlike  temper  was  a  family  trait  of  the 

1  Bradford's  History. 


152  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Winslows,  down  even  to  our  time  ;  for  from 
this  stock  was  descended  Rear-Admiral  John 
Winslow,  who  sank  the  Alabama  in  the  War 
of  the  Rebellion.  And,  to  return  to  the  old 
days,  Governor  Josiah's  son  John  was  a 
general  in  the  Canadian  Campaign  of  1775. 
To  his  lot  fell  the  execution  of  the  harsh 
edict  that  drove  into  exile,  from  their  secluded 
and  peaceful  homes  by  the  Basin  of  Minas, 
the  Acadian  peasants  of  Grand  Pr6,  to  that 

"  Exile  without  an  end  and  without  an  example  in 
story." 

So  he  figures  in  Longfellow's  Evangeline, 
and  the  poet  describes  him  standing  in  the 
sacred  shadows  of  the  old  church  on  the 
steps  of  the  altar,  — 

"  Holding  aloft   in  his  hands,  with  its  seals,  the 
Royal  commission," 

and  then  uttering  the  sentence  which  stripped 
the  poor  people  of  their  homes  and  posses- 
sions, and  drove  them,  wanderers,  to  foreign 
lands. 

Of  course  it  was  in  the  King's  service  that 
General  John  Winslow  was   called  upon   to 


T^«  old  Winslofw  House. 


Marshfield.  155 

execute  this  cruel  duty.  But  no  one  ever 
doubted  the  loyalty  of  the  Winslows,  and  in 
fact  their  home  was  a  stronghold  of  Toryism. 
Dr.  Isaac  Winslow's  house  was  the  chief 
meeting-place  of  a  society  of  loyalists,  three 
hundred  in  number. 

This  old  Winslow  house  is  interesting ;  a 
grand  old  mansion  in  its  day,  it  still  retains 
an  air  of  its  past  grandeur.  Like  many  great 
houses  of  its  time,  it  has  a  secret  chamber, 
the  entrance  to  which  is  by  a  sliding  panel 
over  one  of  the  wide  fire-places. 

It  is  related  that  one  of  the  Winslows,  all 
of  whom  were  staunch  Tories,  took  refuge  in 
this  hiding-place  after  the  house  had  been 
surrounded  by  a  body  of  patriots.  In  the 
room  connected  with  the  secret  place,  there 
was  at  the  time  a  woman  in  bed  with  a  new- 
born child.  The  colonists,  with  a  delicate 
forbearance,  made  but  a  superficial  search  of 
her  apartment,  and  so  the  royalist  in  hiding 
escaped  discovery. 

Like  the  old  mansion,  Marshfield  itself  bears 
not  the  glory  of  its  earlier  years.  In  the  first 


156  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

of  this  century  't  was  far  busier,  had  more 
houses,  and  considerable  ship-building. 

When  it  was  first  settled,  it  was  called 
Roxham  or  Green's  Harbor,  and  until  1641 
was  a  part  of  the  next  old  Pilgrim  town, 
Duxbury. 


ON  this  old  place  there  has  fallen  also, 
the  calm  of  age,  for  fifty  years  ago  it  was 
a  bustling  place.  Its  sons  were  familiar  to 
China,  Japan,  and  the  Indies,  and  its  ships 
were  known  round  the  world. 

Settled  it  was  in  1630-1632,  by  men  of 
honor  and  distinction  in  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious history  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  was 
called  Duxbury,  after  Duxbury  Hall,  the 
seat  of  the  Standish  family  in  England ;  for 
Miles  Standish  settled  here,  as  did  John 
Alden,  his  rival. 

Here  they  raised  the  roof-trees  of  their 
rough  homes,  which,  like  all  the  earliest 
ones,  were  surrounded  by  palisades  to 
keep  off  wolves  and  savages.  Fortified 


158  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

cottages,  they  were  lighted  dimly  by  win- 
dows of  oiled  paper  which  oaken  shutters 
made  secure.  On  the  ground  floor  was  a 
large  living-room  with  a  kitchen,  and  gen- 
erally one  bed-chamber.  Under  the  gam- 
brel  roof  were  two  chambers.  The  lean-to 
roofs,  which  are  still  seen  in  many  old  houses, 
were  of  a  later  period.  The  walls  were  of 
stout  square  planks,  and  they  were  clap- 
boarded  inside,  as  were  also  the  partitions. 
The  chimneys  stood  outside  the  walls,  and 
were  built,  cob-fashion,  of  sticks  and  clay 
plaster. 

John  Alden  built  his  home  in  1631,  on 
the  south  side  of  Blue  Fish  River,  near 
Eagle  Tree  Pond,  ten  years  after  his  mar- 
riage to  Priscilla, 

"The    damsel    Priscilla,    the     loveliest     maiden    of 
Plymouth." 

Here,  the  married  lovers  raised  a  good 
old-fashioned  family  of  eleven  children,  and 
here  they  both  died  at  an  advanced  age, 
crowned  with  honor  and  affection.  Indeed, 
John  Alden  outlived  all  the  signers  of  the 


Duxbury.  161 

famous  Mayflower  compact,  and  was  eighty- 
seven  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Many  posi- 
tions of  honor  and  trust  had  he  held  in  his 
long  and  useful  life. 

Near  the  site  of  his  dwelling  now  stands 
an  Alden  house,  the  third  one  on  the 
estate.  This  one,  two  hundred  and  forty 
years  old,  was  built  by  his  grandson.  It  is 
of  wood  with  a  pitched  roof  and  a  massive 
chimney  of  brick  laid  in  pasture  clay.  The 
interior  is  very  interesting,  and  most  of  the 
rooms  keep  their  old  wainscoting  of  native 
pine.  The  house  frame  is  all  of  hewn  white 
oak.  In  it  lives  John  Alden,  the  eighth,  a 
lineal  descendant  of  Standish's  envoy  to 
the  arch  Priscilla.  John  Alden,  ninth,  was 
killed  by  lightning  while  a  lad.  In  con- 
nection with  this  cutting  off  of  the  line  of 
John  Aldens,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the 
first  death  in  all  the  colony  from  a  light- 
ning stroke  occurred  in  this  very  town  in 
1658. 

The  ride  to  Old  Powder  Point  and  the 
Beach  is  a  very  pleasant  one.  Here  the 


1 62  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

French  cable  from  Brest  is  brought  ashore, 
and  it  is  more  than  interesting  to  visit  the 
cable  house ;  for  no  one  with  any  imagina- 
tion could  help  yielding  to  the  spell  of  this 
wonder,  —  this  binding  together  of  two  con- 
tinents ocean-parted.  One  thinks  with  awe 
of  the  dark  and  silent  depths  through  which 
these  cables  creep,  and  of  the  wonders  of 
God  there  wrought. 

"  Words,  and  the  words  of  men,  flicker  and  flutter 

and  beat  — 

Warning,  sorrow  and  gain,  salutation  and  mirth 
For  a    Power  troubles  the  Still  that  has   neither 
voice  nor  feet." 

In  the  presence  of  this  every-day  miracle 
of  our  time,  we  think  of  the  gloom,  deep  as 
that  of  the  ocean  floor  these  cables  traverse, 
which,  in  the  Pilgrim  days,  shrouded  even 
the  commonest  phenomena  of  life  and  nature. 
For  in  their  day,  the  rainbow  and  the  light- 
ning had  not  given  up  their  secrets;  the 
pendulum  and  the  barometer  were  unknown; 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  the  attrac- 
tion of  gravitation  were  undiscovered.  Two 


The  John  Alden  House. 


Duxbury*  165 

centuries  and  a  half  were  to  elapse  before 
the  invention  of  the  telegraph.  Considering 
the  ignorance  of  the  world  at  that  time,  we 
should  marvel  that  the  Forefathers  were  so 
little  ruled  by  superstition  and  its  sister, 
persecution. 

But  in  Duxbury  the  greatest  interest  at- 
taches to  the  life  here  of  Miles  Standish. 
The  place  of  his  dwelling  is  reached  by  the 
long  and  pleasant  village  street  past  many 
an  old-fashioned  mansion,  and  under  many 
beautiful  trees. 

On  the  way  is  the  little  burying-ground 
where  his  grave  has  recently  been  dis- 
covered. Elder  Brewster  is  buried  there 
too,  it  is  believed,  and  many  others  of  the 
first  settlers. 

For  years  the  last  resting  places  of  the 
most  eminent  of  the  Forefathers  were  un- 
known. It  seems  strange  that  the  descend- 
ants of  these  Englishmen  should  so  soon 
have  lost  the  reverence  and  care  for  the  dead 
which  is  so  characteristic  a  trait  of  their 
nation,  —  that  loving  care  of  the  graves  that 


1 66  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

they  have  always  exhibited  in  the  old  church- 
yards of  England.  In  the  little  English  vil- 
lages, just  such  villages  as  the  Pilgrims  came 
from,  the  tiny  God's  Acres  are  close  to  the 
lives  of  the  people,  and  they  are  kept  sweet 
with  flowers  nearly  all  the  year.  In  the  long 
summer  twilights  the  women  and  children 
may  be  seen  carrying  to  them  baskets  of 
flowers  from  the  cottage-gardens  to  beautify 
the  graves.  And  there  is  something  gently 
and  sweetly  sorrowful  in  the  thought  of 
slipping  away  into  forgetfulness  so  near  to 
the  busy  life  of  the  village.  Sharp  is  the 
contrast  with  the  lonely  graveyards  of  New 
England,  so  many  of  them  remote  and  neg- 
lected. On  lonely  hillsides,  or  by  the  dusty 
road,  uncared  for  and  forgotten,  the  weeds 
and  briers  enwrap  the  headstones,  and  trees 
spring  up  between  the  graves. 

This  burying-place,  for  example,  was  for 
years  wholly  neglected,  a  tangled  waste  of 
weeds  choked  it,  and  the  cattle  roamed  over 
it.  It  is  only  within  a  few  years  that  it  has 
been  cleared  up  and  inclosed.  While  this 


The  arch  Prtscilla, 


Duxbury. 


169 


work  was  in  progress,  the  workmen  came 
upon  some  peculiarly  shaped  stones  buried 
in  the  sand.  Now  there  was  a  tradition  that 
Standish's  grave  had  been  marked  by  two 


The  Grave  of  Miles  Stand ts/i. 

pyramidal  stones  placed  due  east  and  west 
and  about  six  feet  apart.  As  the  ones  found 
answered  to  this  description,  very  careful  re- 
searches were  made  with  the  result,  that  three 
graves  were  finally  uncovered  there.  In  two 


170  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

of  them  were  the  skeletons  of  two  young 
women,  one  with  abundant  light  brown  hair, 
and  the  other  with  long  tresses  of  a  darker 
shade,  and  both  with  beautiful  teeth.  Be- 
tween these  two,  in  the  middle  grave,  was  the 
skeleton  of  a  man.  Now  the  Captain's  will 
requests  that,  should  he  die  in  Duxbury,  that 
his  body  was  "  to  laied  as  neare  as  conven- 
iently may  bee  to  my  two  deer  daughters, 
Lora  Standish  my  daughter  and  Mary 
Standish  my  daughter  in  law."  And  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  grave  of 
Miles  Standish  has  been  found.  So  the  spot 
has  been  inclosed  by  a  fort-like  fence  of 
stone,  guarded  at  the  corners  by  cannon. 

It  is  probable  that  John  and  Priscilla  Alden 
also  found  a  resting-place  here,  and  in  fact 
the  oldest  dated  headstone  bears  the  name  of 
their  son  Jonathan,  and  many  other  Alden 
graves  are  here. 

A  churchyard  this  spot  originally  was,  and 
the  site  of  the  church,  the  first  meeting-house, 
has  been  located  and  marked  by  a  stone. 

Not  far  from  the  Captain's  grave  is  the  spot 


Duxbury.  171 

where  his  house  once  stood.  Sheltering  it 
and  high  above  it  rises  Captain's  Hill  crowned 
by  the  monument  that  has  been  erected  to 
his  memory.  His  house  was  burned  down 
after  his  death,  about  1666,  but  the  cellar  is 
still  plainly  marked.  His  dwelling  must  have 
been  a  very  peculiar  one,  for  it  seems  to  have 
consisted  of  two  wings  converging  like  the 
stems  of  a  V.  When  it  was  built  the  penin- 
sula on  which  it  stands  was  thickly  wooded, 
and  over  it  roamed  the  deer  and  many  a 
gaunt  wolf  besides,  so  the  house  was  stoutly 
palisaded  to  protect  it  from  savage  beasts 
as  well  as  men.  At  that  time  too  it  was 
generally  believed  that  lions  and  other 
ferocious  beasts  infested  the  woods  of  the 
New  World.  "  New  England's  Prospect  " 
says,  "  Besides  Plimouth  men  have  traded  for 
Lyons  skinnes  in  former  times."  Whether 
this  belief  was  held  by  the  Pilgrims  them- 
selves, I  do  not  know,  but  the  Puritans  along 
the  North  Shore  never  doubted  that  "  Lyons  " 
to  say  nothing  of  demons,  or  even  the  evil- 
one  himself,  were  lurking  in  the  deep  shadows 


172  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

of  the  forests  that  swept  backward  from  the 
shores  of  Cape  Ann. 

For  even  them,  you  may  be  sure  the  Cap- 
tain would  have  stood  in  little  dread.  His 
natural  courage  had  been  braced  by  a  life  of 
adventure  in  camp  and  field.  A  life  that 
makes  him  the  most  picturesque  character  of 
all  the  Pilgrims.  He  has  been  ever  rep- 
resented as  a  man  of  fiery  temper,  impetuous 
and  masterful,  "  a  little  chimney  soon  heated," 
for  he,  like  Caesar  and  Napoleon,  was  of  small 
stature.  But  if  he  was  quick,  he  was  .still  "  a 
friend  of  peace  yet  ever  ready  to  fight  for  it 
and  with  little  regard  for  the  odds  against 
him."  He  probably  felt  able  to  settle  all 
disputes  himself,  for  he  was  the  rarest  of  liti- 
gants, —  twice  only  did  he  appeal  to  the  law, 
and  then  to  resent  the  cruel  treatment  of  his 
dumb  animals.  Once  his  dog  was  killed,  and 
another  time  his  sheep  were  worried  by  a 
neighbor's  dog.  These  wanton  acts  the  old 
soldier  would  not  tolerate  and  in  each  case 
he  secured  the  punishment  of  the  offenders. 

Also  was  he  a  friend  of  all  good  Indians, 


Duxbury. 


173 


especially  of  that  "  proper  lustie  man,"  that 
"man  of  accounte  for  his  vallour  &  parts 
amongst  ye  Indians,"  Hobamock,  the  staunch 


"  At  StandisK's  Fireside" 

friend  of  the  Pilgrims.  An  intimate  friend- 
ship existed  between  these  two,  and  Hoba- 
mock spent  his  declining  years  well  cared  for 
at  Standish's  fireside.  To  this  intimacy  with 
the  Indians  the  Captain  owed,  no  doubt,  his 


174  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

skill  in  their  language,  for  he  surpassed  all 
the  other  colonists  in  that  respect. 

He  was,  too,  the  best  linguist  otherwise,  — 
an  accomplishment  that  had  come  to  him  in 
his  roaming  life,  for  when  young  he  had  held, 
under  Elizabeth,  a  military  commission  to 
fight  in  foreign  parts,  and  so  had  mastered 
French  and  Spanish,  as  well  as  Dutch  and 
Flemish. 

It  was  probably  during  his  campaigning 
against  the  cruel  Spaniard  that  he  met  and 
was  attracted  to  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  That 
he  should  have  been  so  much  their  friend  as 
to  have  gone  with  them  across  the  sea  to  a 
savage  land  seems  the  more  remarkable  be- 
cause it  is  not  clear  that  he  shared  their  par- 
ticular faith.  It  has  even  been  claimed  that 
he  was  a  Romanist,  at  least  that  he  was  a 
scion  of  a  noble  Catholic  family.  Of  a  long 
and  noble  line  he  really  was,  for  on  the  roll 
of  the  Norman  barons,  made  soon  after  the 
Conquest,  appears  the  blazon  of  Thurston  de 
Standish.  This  baron's  son  Hugh  held  an- 
cient Dokesbury  (Duxbury)  Hall  in  1306. 


Miles  Stattdisfi. 


Duxbury.  177 

One  John  Standish  was  knighted  by  Richard 
II.  for  helping  to  kill  poor  Wat  Tyler  in 
1381.  An  Alexander  Standish  was  knighted 
in  1482,  and  indeed  the  family  was  ever  emi- 
nent in  peace  and  war  —  generally  the  latter. 
The  Reformation  divided  the  house  against 
itself,  and  the  Duxbury  Hall  branch  went 
over  to  the  Protestants,  but  the  Standishs  of 
Standish  Hall  clung  faithfully  to  the  church 
of  Rome. 

It  was  from  this  latter  branch  that  Miles 
Standish  was  descended ;  and  at  his  death 
he  bequeathed  to  his  son  Alexander  all  his 
lands,  "  as  heir  apparent  by  lawful  descent  in 
Ormistic,  Bousconge,  Wrightington,  Maud- 
sley,  Newburrow,  Cranston,  and  in  the  Isle  of 
Man  and  given  to  me  as  right  heir  by  lawful 
descent,  but  surreptitiously  detained  from 
me,  my  great  grandfather  being  a  second  or 
younger  brother  from  the  house  of  Standish 
of  Standish." 

Efforts  have  been  made  in  this  century  by 
his  descendants  to  unravel  the  secrets  of  his 
birth,  and  to  prove  the  right  of  his  claim. 


178  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

According  to  the  commission  given  him  by 
Queen  Elizabeth,  he  must  have  been  born  in 
1584  or  1585.  But  the  lawful  evidence  in 
England  has  been  wilfully  destroyed  by  oblit- 
erating all  the  entries  for  those  dates  in  the 
parish  register  of  Chorley,  his  native  place. 
Moreover,  by  authority  of  an  ancient  law,  the 
rector  of  Chorley  has  prevented  any  one 
from  examining  the  records,  and  so  stands 
guard  for  his  patron,  who,  it  is  believed,  holds 
the  estates  under  a  fraudulent  title.  Of  im- 
mense value  are  the  lands  now,  and  of  great 
extent,  and  yield  each  year  an  income  of  half 
a  million  dollars. 

It  seems  strange  that  Standish  should  have 
given  up  his  brilliant  prospects  as  a  brave  and 
skilful  soldier,  and  his  heirship  to  manorial 
rights  and  honors,  to  cast  his  lot  with  a  hand- 
ful of  almost  friendless,  expatriated  religious 
enthusiasts,  with  whom  it  is  even  suspected 
that  he  was  not  wholly  in  sympathy.  Why 
he  should  have  sacrificed  so  much  for  no  re- 
turn cannot  be  explained  by  what  we  know 
of  his  early  life.  It  would  seem  that  he  must 


Duxbury. 


179 


have  had  some  private  reasons  of  which  the 
world  knows  nothing  nor  can  ever  know. 

Yet  was  he  content  -with  the  slim  honors 
and  estate  that  his  chivalrous  devotion  to  his 


new  friends  brought  him,  *  No  task  was  far 
him  too  difficult  or  dangerous,  none  too  hum- 
ble or  disagreeable.  Great  as  a  ruler  over 
others,  he  was  far  greater  as  a  rakr  over 
himself.  Xo  one  ever  more  decidedly  had  a 


180  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

mission,  and  none  ever  more  nobly  fulfilled 
it." 

When  he  died  he  left  a  few  choice  books 
that  show  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  literary 
tastes.  Among  them  were  three  Bibles,  just 
the  number  of  his  muskets.  But  this  was  not 
all  his  arsenal,  for  he  left  beside  a  fowling- 
piece,  four  carbines,  two  small  guns,  besides 
a  sword  and  cutlass. 

The  Standish  cottage  now  standing  was 
built  by  his  son  Alexander,  and  is  nearly  two 
and  a  half  centuries  old.  It  was  built  partly 
of  materials  taken  from  the  old  house. 

Elder  Brewster,  the  Captain's  old  friend, 
lived  near  him,  but  nothing  remains  of  that 
house  to-day ;  and  not  far  away  across  the 
marshes  and  the  river  lived  the  dear  compan- 
ion of  his  labors  and  responsibilities,  —  Gov- 
ernor Bradford  in  Kingston. 


AND  a  pretty  drive  it  is  to  this  old  town 
which  all  the  way  looks  invitingly  across 
the  bay.  By  the  meadows  the  road  winds, 
and  through  them  winds  Island  Creek.  Just 
at  the  entrance  to  Kingston  Jones'  River  is 
crossed,  and  here  the  first  settlements  were 
made.  Here  Governor  Bradford  lived  at 
Stony  Brook  in  the  parish  of  Jones'  River, 
Plymouth,  for  Kingston  was  not  set  off  from 
Plymouth  until  1717.  The  site  of  his  dwel- 
ling is  now  marked  by  a  tablet. 

From  his  house  he  overlooked  the  meadows 
to  Captain's  Hill  to  the  dwellings  of  his  friends, 
Standish  and  Brewster.  Here  he  entertained 
the  Chief  Wamsutta,  and  it  is  thought  by 
many  that  this  was  his  principal  home.  If 


182 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


it  was  not,  he  may  dispute  with  Samuel 
Fuller,  the  old  colony's  first  physician,  the 
distinction  of  having  been  the  first  summer 
resident  of  our  coast,  for  the  doctor  had  a 


By  Island  Creek. 

summer  house  near  Smelt  Brook,  and  a  town 
house  on  Leyden  Street,  not  far  from  the 
governor's. 

The  most  interesting  landmark  of  Kingston, 
however,  is  the  Major  John  Bradford  house. 
Close  by  the  river  it  stands  on  a  high  em- 
bankment. It  is  not  disfigured  by  paint,  and 


Kingston.  183 

its  cool  grays  melt  softly  into  the  shadows 
of  the  great  elms  that  shade  it. 

In  King  Philip's  War  the  house  was  par- 
tially burned.  It  was  at  the  time  abandoned, 
for  Major  Bradford  had  removed  for  safety 
to  the  guard  house  across  the  river.  One 
day  he  returned  with  a  few  of  his  neighbors 
for  some  forgotten  goods.  As  he  neared 
his  home  he  saw  smoke  rising  over  the  trees, 
and  upon  drawing  near  he  found  that  his  house 
was  on  fire.  At  the  same  time  his  attention 
was  attracted  to  an  Indian  sentinel  who  was 
standing  guard  on  Abraham's  Hill,  and  was 
waving  his  blanket  aloft  and  crying,  Choc- 
wan  g  !  Chocwang !  (the  white  men  are 
coming).  He  knew  then  that  it  was  the 
savages  who  had  set  the  fire.  He  and  his 
companions  rushed  boldly  forward,  but  the 
Indians  were  so  intent  on  plunder  that  they 
did  not  hear  their  comrade's  warning  nor  the 
approach  of  the  white  men,  so  that  Bradford 
rushed  without  any  warning  upon  them,  and 
firing  his  piece  apparently  killed  one  of 
them  before  they  fled.  On  coming  to  the 


1 84 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


spot  where  the  man  fell,  however,  he  was 
astonished  not  to  find  the  body  of  the 
plunderer,  and  for  a  time  believed  that  he 


Major  John  Bradford's  House. 

must  have  been  mistaken.  But  after  the 
war  an  Indian  came  one  day  to  him  and 
declared  himself  to  be  the  wounded  man, 
and  in  proof  thereof  showed  the  scars  where 
three  bullets  had  passed  through  his  side. 


Kingston.  185 

This  old  house  was  for  years  the  casket 
in  which  reposed  that  famous  manuscript, 
the  Bradford  "  History  of  Plymouth  Planta- 
tion." But  in  1728  Major  John  Bradford  lent 
it  with  other  precious  books  to  Thomas 
Prince  to  take  out  of  it  what  he  thought 
proper  for  his  New  England  Chronology. 
It  is  known  that  others  used  it  years  after- 
ward and  that  Governor  Hutchinson  had  it, 
and  by  many  it  is  believed  that  this  Tory 
governor  carried  it  away  with  him  to  Eng- 
land. Certain  it  is  that  it  disappeared  about 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  and  for  many 
years  was  lost  to  the  knowledge  of  the  world. 
But  in  1855  it  was  by  chance  discovered  in  the 
library  of  the  Bishop  of  London  at  Fulham. 

How  or  when  it  got  there  nobody  knows. 
Senator  Hoar,  speaking  of  the  loss  of  the 
book  and  its  discovery  in  England,  declared 
that  he  knew  of  no  incident  like  this  in  history, 
unless  it  be  the  finding  of  the  royal  crown 
and  sword  and  sceptre  of  Scotland,  in  a 
chest  in  the  castle  of  Edinburgh,  where  they 
had  lain  unknown  for  over  a  century. 


1 86  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

Called  by  the  English,  The  Log  of  the 
Mayflower,  it  was  recognized  by  them  to  be 
of  great  value.  So  that  repeated  attempts 
failed  to  procure  its  return  to  this  country. 
Finally,  in  1897,  through  extraordinary  good 
fortune,  our  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain, 
the  Hon.  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  secured  the 
precious  document,  and  conveyed  it  to  the 
people  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts in  the  care  of  whose  governors  it  now 
rests. 

There  are  many  other  old  and  interesting 
houses  here  in  Kingston,  for  the  place  is 
most  intimately  associated  with  the  history 
of  the  first-comers,  for  it  was  during  nearly  a 
hundred  years  a  part  of  Plymouth. 

It  was  named  Kingston,  it  is  said,  at  the 
suggestion  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Dummer 
on  the  28th  day  of  May,  1717,  that  being  the 
birthday  of  his  gracious  majesty  King  George 
the  First.  It  is  now  connected  with  the 
mother-town  by  an  electric  railway  which 
affords  an  enjoyable  ride  to  Plymouth. 


URELY,  the  journey 
along    the     Pilgrim 
Shore    reaches    the 
climax  of  its  interest 
at  Plymouth,  an  inter- 
est so  great  that  most 
visitors    rush   directly  to 
the   mothertown,  and    regard 
not  the  many  attractions  that 
lie  along  the  way. 

Or  they  come  by  water,  and 
thus  only  see  from  the  steam- 
er's deck  the  low  line  of  rocks  and  sand 
along  which  the  colony  spread  and  prospered. 
Without  doubt  they  save  themselves  some 
trouble,  for  everything  along  the  shore  is  not 


1 88  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

arranged  for  the  sight-seer,  as  it  is  at  Ply- 
mouth, where  all  is  ticketed  and  labelled, 
where  there  are  good  guides  and  guide-books. 

This  thoroughness  is  indeed  a  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  Pilgrim  land  and  Pilgrim  story. 
No  episode  of  history  has  been  so  thoroughly 
investigated.  And  it  would  seem  that  every 
fact  connected  with  the  Pilgrim  movement, 
which  must  ultimately  be  regarded  as  the  real 
origin  of  the  United  States, — every  fact,  I 
say,  discoverable  by  the  energy  and  persis- 
tence of  man  must  have  already  been  brought 
to  light,  classified,  and  recorded. 

A  considerable  literature  has  grown  up 
about  these  facts,  one  that  continues  to  grow 
in  volume  and  even  in  interest.  The  writer 
will  not  attempt  then  to  rehearse  what  has 
already  been  so  ably  and  so  gracefully  told, 
but  will  confine  himself  to  his  own  impres- 
sions :  those  of  a  visitor  who  has  only  the 
information  of  the  ordinary  reader,  and  one 
who  is  apt  to  view  a  subject  from  the  pic- 
turesque stand-point  rather  than  from  that  of 
critical  exactness  or  eager  denial. 


Plymouth.  189 

The  general  impression  of  Plymouth,  as 
one  enters  the  town  from  Kingston,  is  that  of 
prosperity,  thrift,  and  respectability.  Good 
streets  there  are,  well  shaded  and  watered, 
comfortable  houses,  with  finely  kept  grounds 
and  lawns,  and  a  glimpse  of  thriving  indus- 
tries, while  over  all  is  an  air  of  modernity. 

In  this  the  newer  part  of  the  town  is  the 
monument  that  we  saw  long  ago  from  Dux- 
bury.  It  is  called  the  National  Monument  to 
the  Forefathers,  and  was  "  erected  by  a  grate- 
ful people  in  remembrance  of  their  labors, 
sacrifice,  and  sufferings  for  the  cause  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty."  A  work  of  recent 
years  it  is,  for  it  was  finished  no  longer  ago 
than  1888,  although  the  corner-stone  had 
then  been  laid  for  twenty-nine  years. 

It  stands  on  a  bare  hill  reached  by  shady, 
pleasant  streets  that  make  its  shadeless 
exposure  seem  more  barren  by  contrast. 
Opposite  the  entrance  to  its  precincts,  how- 
ever, is  a  friendly  wayside  bench  that  affords 
a  good  view  of  it  and  a  rest  under  green 
leaves. 


190  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

The  pile  itself  is  granite  of  indifferent  art,  it 
must  be  allowed,  but  nevertheless,  as  it  rises 
from  the  bare  hill  against  the  sky,  it  has  a 
certain  amount  of  dignity,  —  a  dignity  which 
would  not  be  lessened,  I  believe,  were  the  sur- 
roundings softened  a  little  by  flower,  shrub, 
and  tree.  "  Why,"  said  a  native  to  me,  "  that 
hill 's  nothing  but  a  heap  of  sand,  but  it 's  a 
good  one.  If  we  had  it  anywhere  where 
'twould  be  of  use,  't  would  be  worth  a  fortune 
for  mortar-sand." 

The  monument  consists  of  a  pedestal, 
octagonal,  from  every  other  face  of  which 
extends  a  buttress ;  on  these  four  buttresses 
are  seated  as  many  figures  of  heroic  size ;  on 
the  pedestal  itself  stands  a  gigantic  figure  of 
Faith.  She  holds  a  Bible  under  one  arm,  and 
points  heavenward  with  the  other.  The  seated 
figures  represent,  respectively,  Morality, 
Law,  Education,  and  Freedom.  All  are 
conventional  in  design,  and  are  supplemented 
by  small  accessory  figures.  On  the  faces  of 
the  buttresses  are  four  slabs  of  marble  carved 
in  high  relief  and  protected  by  plate  glass. 


Plymouth.  191 

They  represent  the  departure  from  —  Delft 
Haven,  the  signing  of  the  Social  Compact,  the 
Landing  at  Plymouth,  the  Treaty  with  Mas- 
sasoit. 

Not  far  from  the  monument  on  the  Main 
Street  is  the  Museum,  "  Pilgrim  Hall." 
Within  it  is  an  interesting  collection  of  many 
and  divers  objects  connected  with  or  related 
more  or  less  intimately  to  the  history  of  the 
town,  many  of  them  of  priceless  value  as 
relics  of  the  Forefathers.  But  of  course  they 
differ  in  degree  of  value  and  interest.  For 
instance,  in  the  Alden  case  is  John  Alden's 
Bible,  a  fine  halberd  found  in  the  cellar  of 
his  house  at  Duxbury,  and  a  few  bricks  from 
Bradford's  house  at  Kingston,  and  beside 
these  relics  a  Chinese  razor  and  a  pine-tree 
shilling. 

The  most  interesting  of  all  the  cases  is,  I 
think  that  which  contains  the  Standish  be- 
longings. Here  is  the  pewter  plate  and  iron 
pot  so  familiar  to  us  in  photographs,  and 
brought  over  by  the  Captain  in  the  May- 
flower. There  's  a  piece  of  his  hearthstone 


192 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


ever,  is 


too,  and  other 
relics  from  his 
house    in    Dux- 
bury.      Greatest 
prize  of  all,  ho\v- 
his  sword  — 


"his  trusty  sword  of  Damascus 
Curved  at  the  point  and  inscribed  with 
its  mystical  Arabic  sentence." 

r 

r  What  food   for  thought    and 

fancy  it  is !  Its  sun  and  stars  suggest  the  an- 
cient days  of  Persia,  the  glories  of  Babylon 
and  Nineveh.  Indeed  no  one  knows  how  old 
it  is,  this  blade  of  the  Captain's.  Centuries 
before  he  dimmed  its  brightness  with  the 
blood  of  his  red  brother  (was  it  with  this 
blade  he  hewed  off  the  head  of  savage  and 
brave  Witawamat?),  centuries  before  that  it 
may  have  been  wrenched  by  Moslem  hands 
from  some  fierce  fire-worshipper,  then  wet 
with  blood  of  Greek,  Christian,  and  Jew,  when 
the  hordes  of  Omah  first  humbled  Palestine 
to  Islam's  yoke.  It  may  have  flashed  in 
triumphal  processions  beneath  the  minarets 


Plymouth.  193 

of  Damascus,  or  "  by  Bagdad's  shrines  of 
fretted  gold."  Then  hundreds  of  years  later, 
perhaps,  when  't  was  drawn  in  defence  of  the 
Holy  Land,  it  was  torn  from  swart  Paynim 
grasp  by  a  gaunt  crusader,  a  Standish,  on  the 
very  walls  of  Jerusalem. 

An  heirloom  then  it  became,  descending 
from  Standish  to  Standish,  until  finally,  after 
being  wielded  against  the  cruel  Spaniard  in 
the  Low  Countries,  't  was  brought  across  the 
seas  to  be  the  defence  of  the  Pilgrim  Republic. 

All  this  may  be  true,  indeed  Professor 
Rosedale  of  Jerusalem  does  not  hesitate  to 
declare  that  the  sword  was  forged  before  the 
year  A.  D.  637.  A  part  of  the  inscriptions  he 
says  are  in  Cufic,  in  which  was  written  the 
Koran  in  the  time  of  the  prophet  Moham- 
med, one  thousand  years  before  Standish  set 
foot  in  America. 

One  of  the  inscriptions  Professor  Rosedale 
translated  thus :  — 

"  With  peace  God  ruled  His  slaves  (creatures)  and 
with  the  judgment  of  His  arm  gave  trouble  to  the 
valiant  of  the  mighty  and  courageous  "  (meaning  the 
wicked). 

'3 


194  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

The  hilt  is  not  the  one  Miles  Standish  knew, 
the  blade  has  probably  known  many  another. 

His  was  a  basket  hilt,  like  the  ones  carried 
by  Cromwell's  Roundheads.  As  will  be  seen, 
it  is  a  backsword,  and  with  its  basket  hilt 
should  have  made  an  excellent  weapon  for 
the  hacking  sword  play  of  his  time. 

I  used  it  as  a  model  in  drawing  the  crest 
of  the  great  seal  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts,  a  broadsword  held  in  an 
arm  clothed  and  ruffled  as  the  law  demands. 

But  there  are  gentler  reminders  of  the 
Captain  than  this,  for  here  are  fragments  of 
a  quilt  which  once  belonged  to  his  first  wife 
Rose,  — 

';  Beautiful  rose  of  love  that  bloomed  for  me  by  the 
wayside." 

But  more  suggestive,  and  even  as  touching, 
is  the  sampler  embroidered  by  his  daughter 
Lora.  Its  colors  are  but  the  ashes  of  their 
once  bright  hues,  and  the  faded  floss  is  sink- 
ing gradually  into  the  background  of  yellow- 
ing linen.  Still  the  pretty  design  of  the 
marshalled  bands  is  plainly  marked,  and 


Plymouth.  195 

below    them    one   can    yet    distinguish    the 
prayerful  verses :  — 

"  Lorea  Standish  is  my  name. 
Lord  guide  my  hart  that  I  may  doe  Thy  will ; 
Also  fill  my  hands  with  such  convenient  skill 
As  may  conduce  to  virtue  void  of  shame  ; 
And  I  will  give  the  glory  to  Thy  name." 

In  the  White  case  is  the  will  of  Peregrine 
White.  With  what  tender  pity  one  thinks  of 
him  in  looking  at  this  last  testament !  Bowed 
by  over  fourscore  years,  and  as  the  will  re- 
cites: under  many  weaknesses  and  bodily 
infirmities,  not  even  able  to  sign  his  name,  for 
at  the  end  appears  a  cross,  "  his  mark,"  sign 
typical  of  his  afflictions,  for  the  infirm  old 
fingers  could  no  longer  guide  the  pen  for 
even  this  little.  How  bold  and  good  his 
penmanship  once  was  may  be  seen  by  the 
bond  written  and  signed  by  him  years  before, 
and  now  in  the  case  K. 

All  sorts  of  things  are  there  in  these  cases, 
most  of  them  connected  intimately  or  remotely 
with  the  colony's  history,  —  rare  books,  pre- 
cious documents,  china,  silver,  in  short,  most 


196  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

everything,  even  to  a  broken  brick  or  two 
and  a  handful  of  nails.  In  one  case  is  a 
rapier  which  suggests  Plymouth's  first,  last, 
and  only  duel.  Two  of  the  young  men 
fought  with  rapiers  and  daggers  after  the 
fashion  of  the  day,  and  one  was  wounded. 
They  were  afterwards  so  ignominiously  pun- 
ished that  duelling  was  stopped  forever  in 
the  colony. 

The  Winslow  relics  betray,  as  might  be 
expected,  evidence  of  a  certain  luxury  beyond 
the  others.  A  bit  of  real  vanity  is  that  fine 
slipper  of  Madame  Governor  Winslow's.  All 
embroidered  in  silver,  it  suggests  moments  of 
elegant  idleness  that  must  have  been  almost 
unknown  in  Old  Colony  days.  It  is  what  the 
French  call  a  mule,  has  a  high  Louis  XIV.  heel, 
but  covers  only  the  instep  and  toes. 

Interesting,  too,  are  the  cunning  baby  shoes 
worn  by  Governor  Josiah  Winslow,  the  first 
governor's  ring,  Penelope's  inlaid  cabinet 
and  beaded  purse.  But  all  will  find  things  to 
look  at  for  themselves,  still  may  I  say 
a  word  about  the  things  "behind  the  rail"? 


Plymouth. 


199 


We  know  the  two  quaint 
chairs  by  the  pictures  and 
copies  of  them  that  have  so 
often  been  made.  Both  were 
brought  in  the  Mayflower, 
one  by  Elder  Brewster,  and 
the  other  by  Governor  Car- 
ver. They  are  of  ash,  and 
alike  in  style,  —  a  style  that  is  reflected  in 
the  ancient  flax-wheel  near  by,  and  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  wheel  also  was  of 
the  same  period.  Still  this 
style,  as  applied  to  wheels, 
persisted  for  many  years, 
and  may  be  seen  to-day 
in  remote  districts  of 
Holland  in  wheels  of  a 
much  later  date. 

Then  there  is  the  cra- 


Flax-tvheel, 


2OO 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


die,  that  in  which  Susanna  White  rocked  her 
baby,  the  first  Pilgrim  baby.  It  is  woven 
of  osiers,  and  recalls  the  skill  of  the  Dutch 
in  wicker  -  work.  It 
suggests  now,  and 
must  always  have  re- 
minded the  Pilgrims 
of  their  Holland 
home,  the  low  level 
landscapes,  the 
placid  canals,  and 
the  long  dykes,  wil- 
low-bou  nd  and 
shaded.  And  while 
the  picture  of  the 
Low  Countries  is  painted  on  our  fancy,  we 
should  remember  gratefully  the  brave  hearts 
of  that  land  which  for  so  many  years  offered 
the  only  asylum  for  the  priest-oppressed,  and 
who  maintained  so  long  the  only  bulwark,  of 
soul  freedom  in  all  Europe. 

There  's  a  model,  too,  of  a  ship  of  the 
Mayflower's  type,  and  a  beautiful  ideal  pict- 
ure of  the  Pilgrim  ship  in  Mr.  Halsall's  lovely 


Cradle. 


Plymouth.  201 

painting  of  her  at  anchor  in  the  ice-bound 
harbor. 

A  great  many  pictures  hang  on  the  walls 
beside,  but  the  most  precious  of  them  all  is 
the  portrait  of  Governor  Edward  Winslow ;  for 
it  is  the  only  authentic  portrait  of  a  May- 
flower Pilgrim. 

Of  all  the  other  things  to  see  in  Pilgrim 
Hall  I  will  not  speak.  Each  visitor  will  find 
enough  that  is  interesting  and  fancy-stirring. 
So  I  will  leave  the  museum  and  return  to  the 
town. 

Of  all  the  old  streets  in  Plymouth  the  love- 
liest is  surely  North  Street.  Its  elms  and 
lindens  frame,  with  leaf  and  shade,  a  sparkling 
glimpse  of  the  sea.  The  row  of  great  lindens 
with  rugged  furrowed  trunks  were,  it  is  said, 
brought  from  England  in  a  raisin-box,  and 
were  set  out  by  Colonel  George  Watson  over 
a  century  ago. 

It  is  said  that  Penelope  Winslow  set  out  the 
two  in  front  of  the  old  Winslow  house  oppo- 
site, and  a  droll  story  is  told  of  the  one  which 
shades  the  seats  on  Cole's  Hill. 


2O2  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

The  tale  is  that  once  upon  a  time  a  maiden 
lived  there,  on  the  hill,  who  was  made  miser- 
able by  the  attentions  of  an  unwelcome  suitor. 
Hints  rolled  off  him  like  water  from  a  duck's 
back.  On  snubs  and  cuts  his  love  throve  as 
do  pigs  on  sour  milk.  In  fact,  his  devotion 
was  as  steadfast  as  it  was  disagreeable.  No 
wonder  then  that  the  maid,  at  the  end  of  her 
patience,  at  last  armed  herself  with  a  stout 
switch  one  night,  and  falling  upon  the  persist- 
ent swain  with  amazonian  ardor,  drove  him  by 
force  from  the  field.  Then,  the  story  goes, 
she  cast  her  switch  away  upon  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  where  it  took  root  and  grew,  a  monu- 
ment to  unrequited  love. 

The  old  Winslow  house  at  the  corner  of 
North  and  Winslow  streets  is  a  fine  example 
of  colonial  architecture  made  extra  decorative 
by  the  recent  additions.  Its  frame  was  brought 
from  England,  so  't  is  said,  in  1745,  the  year 
of  its  building.  It  has  been  very  much 
altered  lately,  and  is  more  picturesque  than 
ever.  In  its  antique  drawing-room  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  was  married  to  his  second 


North  Street. 


Plymouth.  205 

wife.  Upon  his  wedding  day  he  drove  from 
Concord  to  Plymouth  in  his  chaise.  That 
evening  he  was  married,  and  the  next  morn- 
ing he  "  set  forth  in  the  chaise  again  and 
brought  his  bride  before  sunset  to  their  new 
home  in  Concord,"  a  journey  of  more  than 
sixty  miles  each  way. 

Cole's  Hill  is  at  the  end  of  North  Street, 
and  overhangs  the  road  as  it  dips  to  the 
wharves.  On  its  brow  are  a  few  seats  which 
may  be  divided  after  the  fashion  of  a  Spanish 
bull  ring  into  sombra  and  sola.  They  are 
generally  occupied  by  professional  as  well  as 
amateur  loafers,  and  the  latter  will  probably 
find  that  they  will  have  to  sit  in  the  sola. 

Seaward  from  this  point  is  a  broad  view  of 
the  harbor,  and  at  high  tide  it  is  a  lovely  one 
too,  but,  when  the  water  recedes,  gray  green 
flats  rise  to  sight  and  to  smell.  Through 
these  levels  wind  the  channel  and  crooked 
sluggish  streams  of  varying  widths  that  all 
seem  fouled  by  the  muddy  bottom. 

However,  let  us  not  turn  up  our  noses  at 
these  flats,  for  perhaps  the  tiny  colony  owed 


2o6  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

in  a  large  measure  its  preservation  to  the 
unlimited  store  of  clams  and  lobsters  that 
these  flats  afforded. 

On  the  farther  side  of  the  harbor  stretches 
the  long,  low,  slender  line  of  Plymouth 
Beach,  hummocky  and  sandy,  then  beyond 
its  ribbon,  farther  seaward,  the  headland  and 
lights  of  the  Gurnet.  On  that  low  bluff,  '  t  is 
said,  was  buried  in  1004  the  bold  Norse  wan- 
derer and  chieftain  Thorwald. 

The  next  headland  to  the  left  is  Saquish 
(meaning  plenty  of  clams),  and  the  next  in 
the  same  direction  is  Clark's  Island.  Weather 
and  tide  permitting,  it  is  a  pleasant  sail  to 
this  last,  where,  remote  from  trolley  and  tour- 
ist, the  spell  of  old  Pilgrim  memories  is  apt 
to  be  much  more  potent  than  in  the  town 
itself. 

The  island  is  quite  large,  containing  over 
a  hundred  acres,  and  although  the  original 
woods  were  long  ago  cleared  away,  it  has 
fine  trees  and  a  good  soil.  It  is  said  that 
crops  of  figs  are  grown  there  in  the  open  air. 
Near  the  middle  of  the  Island  is  a  huge 


Plymouth.  207 

bowlder  formerly  called  Election  Rock,  be- 
cause in  the  old  days  the  young  folks  used 
to  picnic  there  on  ancient  election  holidays. 
But  now  it  is  called  Pulpit  Rock,  because, 
according  to  tradition,  in  its  shelter  the  Pil- 
grim explorers  worshipped  God  on  that  first 
Sunday  in  Plymouth  Harbor.  On  it  there- 
fore have  been  cut  these  words  from  "  Mourt's 
Relation  "  :  "  On  the  Sabbath  day  wee  rested." 

This  great  bowlder  is  similar  to  Plymouth 
Rock,  and  is  the  only  other  one  of  any  size 
along  the  coast.  However,  there  is  a  small 
one  on  the  southeasterly  shore  of  the  Island 
bearing  some  strange  black  markings  said  by 
some  to  be  the  footprints  of  the  Evil  One 
himself,  while  by  some  others  they  are  no 
more  than  the  trail  of  a  passing  witch. 
Sometimes,  however,  they  are  called  Mary 
Chilton's  footsteps. 

But  after  all  there  is  but  one  rock  — 
Plymouth  Rock.  Right  at  the  foot  of  Cole's 
Hill  it  lies,  under  a  granite  canopy,  and  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  its  proper  place.  For 
the  rock  has  been  a  traveller,  and  for  a  time 


208  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

it  rested  in  Town  Square,  from  the  breaking 
out  of  the  Revolution  till  1834,  when  one 
Fourth  of  July  it  was  carried  in  triumphal 
procession  to  the  lot  in  front  of  Pilgrim  Hall, 
where  it  rested  for  forty-six  years.  In  those 
days,  it  used  to  seem  to  the  visitors  that  the 
Pilgrims  had  made  pretty  long  steps  to  land 
on  it  from  their  shallop.  Happily  its  stupid 
and  unnatural  position-  was  at  last  recognized 
by  a  gentleman  from  Baltimore,  Mr.  Joseph 
Henry  Stickney,  who,  without  any  flourish 
of  trumpets,  returned  it  to  its  original  site. 

That  this  is  the  actual  spot  at  which  the 
Pilgrims  landed  —  Mary  Chilton  first  —  is 
too  well  attested  by  facts  and  tradition  to 
admit  of  any  doubt.  In  those  days  it  was 
the  only  convenient  landing-place  from  such 
a  deep  and  bluff-bowed  boat  as  the  Pilgrim 
shallop,  and  the  Pilgrims  had  had  quite 
enough  of  landing  on  the  sands  by  wading 
in  the  icy  wintry  waters.  Then  it  was  on  the 
edge  of  the  beach  that  was  backed  by  the 
deserted  cornfields  of  the  natives,  and,  as  now, 
near  .  the  mouth  of  the  sweet  brook  that 


Plymouth.  211 

slipped  down  there  from  the  forest-girdled 
ponds  inland.  To-day  its  surroundings  are 
prosaic  and  unlovely,  and  I  doubt  that  they 
are  always  forgotten  by  those  who  step 
thoughtfully  on  the  hallowed  spot. 
However,  let  us  go  down  the  steps 

"  Down  to  the  Plymouth  Rock  that  had  been  to  their 

feet  as  a  doorstep," 
"  The  corner-stone  of  a  nation." 

I  have  said  that  the  Rock  has  been  a 
traveller  in  recent  years,  but  it  is  more  of 
a  Pilgrim  than  these  short  journeys  would 
warrant.  Whence  and  when  did  it  come 
here?  For  it  is  as  much  a  stranger  on  these 
sandy  shores  as  were  the  Pilgrims  them- 
selves. Let  the  words  of  Goodwin  answer. 

"  In  dim  and  prehistoric  ages,  '  Fore- 
fathers' Rock '  had  been  reft  from  its  parent 
ledge  by  icy  Nature ;  wrapped  in  the  chill 
embrace  of  some  mighty  floe  or  berg  of 
the  glacial  epoch,  it  had  been  slowly  borne 
for  centuries  over  mountain  and  valley, 
until,  guided  by  the  Divine  Hand,  it  found 
at  last  a  resting  place  between  land  and 


212  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

water  where  in  future  eons  it  was  to  become 
the  most  noted  bowlder  in  Christendom. 
On  that  reckless  strand  it  had  patiently 
awaited  the  great  day  which  should,  though 
unconsciously,  make  it  forever  famous  as  the 
stepping  stone  of  New  England  civilization." 
It  was  on  Cole's  Hill  that  the  dead  who 
departed  in  the  first  dreadful  winter  were 
buried,  and  if  one  re-ascends  the  steps,  and 
turns  to  the  left  by  the  tiny  greensward,  a 
flat  tablet  will  be  seen  which  marks  the  spot 
where  rest  the  bones  of  some  of  those  unfor- 
tunates. Over  their  heads  the  Pilgrims 
planted  the  waving  wheat,  that  it  might,  with 
its  grace  and  greenery,  shield  from  savage 
eyes  the  resting  place  of  so  many  dead. 

"  Lest  they  should  count  them  and  see  how  many 
already  have  perished." 

Other  sad  memories  must  the  Forefathers 
have  had  of  Cole's  Hill,  for  I  doubt  not  that 
it  was  from  this  vantage  ground  that  they 
watched  the  Mayflower  depart,  —  that  only 
bond  between  them  and  the  Old  World.  Yet 


Site  of  the  First  House. 


Plymouth.  215 

not  one  of  them  repented  their  venture,  even 
with  the  recollection  of  the  dreadful  winter 
fresh  and  sore  upon  them. 

"  O  strong  hearts  and  true  !  not  one  went  back  in  the 

Mayflower ! 

No,  not  one  looked  back,  who  had  set  his  hand  to 
this  ploughing !  " 

Close  to  their  doors  were  these  early 
graves,  for  near  by,  where  Carver  Street  over- 
hangs Leyden  Street,  may  be  seen  the  site  of 
the  first  common-house.  A  gambrel-roofed 
house  stands  there  now,  and  on  it  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  has  placed  a  tablet 
which  sets  forth  that  here  the  Pilgrims  built 
their  first  common-house,  and  in  it,  on  the 
2/th  of  February,  1621,  they  first  exercised 
the  right  of  popular  suffrage,  "  and  Miles 
Standish  was  chosen  Captain  by  a  majority 
vote."  Strange  that  it  was  not  a  unanimous 
choice !  And  under  its  roof,  too,  was  made 
the  memorable  treaty  with  Massasoit,  — 
"  after  friendly  entertainments  &  some  gifts 
given  him,"  a  peace  that  continued  for 
twenty-four  years. 


216  The  Pilrim  Shore. 


As  one  looks  down  into  Leyden  Street 
from  near  the  great  elm  in  front  of  the 
church,  one  regrets  that  the  neighborhood  of 
this,  the  First  Street  of  the  Pilgrims,  which  is 
in  part  so  picturesque,  should  be  so  marred 
by  the  necessities  of  modern  life.  Among 
the  old-fashioned  houses  with  quaint  roofs 
and  massive  chimneys,  these  wombs  of  light 
and  power  make  an  incongruous  and  unwel- 
come presence. 

'T  was  along  Leyden  Street  that  the  rows 
of  roughly  fashioned  thatch-roofed  houses 
were  huddled  together  under  the  protection 
of  the  fort  on  Burial  Hill.  And  separated 
they  were  from  the  hills  to  the  south  by  the 
Town  Brook,  whose  sweet  waters  then 
tumbled,  unfettered  and  unfouled,  into  an 
estuary  that  could  shelter  several  ships  in 
winter's  need. 

To-day  its  mouth  is  disfigured  and  ugly, 
but  along  its  banks  the  sloping  gardens  of  the 
old  houses,  sites  of  the  ancient  mere-steads, 
make  many  a  picture  full  of  queer  lines  and 
surprises.  And  along  its  length,  almost  *ta 


Plymouth. 


217 


its  source,  its  natural  beauty  is   marred  by 

a  succession  of  dams  and  mills  whose  clatter 

reaches  quite  into  the  forest. 


Ancient  Mere-steads. 


However,  I  was  not  writing  about  the 
brook,  't  was  about  the  Pilgrims'  First  Street, 
of  which  Leyden  Street  was  a  part.  On  it, 
near  its  other  half,  Town  Square,  is  a  drink- 


218  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

ing  fountain  built  of  field  stone.  Over  it  is 
inscribed :  — 

"  Drink  here  and  quench  your  thirst. 
From  this  spring  they  drank  first." 

It  is  called  the  Elder  Brevvster  spring,  be- 
cause it  is  on  the  land  allotted  to  him  in  1621, 
and  where  he  built  his  house. 

The  Square  is  a  busy  place,  the  centre  of 
Plymouth's  activity.  At  its  head  stands  the 
fine  new  church  of  the  Pilgrimage.  At  first, 
the  Newcomers  worshipped  in  the  fort  on  the 
hill,  each  man  with  his  matchlock  beside 
him,  while  a  sentry  on  the  cannon-guarded 
roof  kept  a  sharp  lookout  for  foes ;  but  in 
1638,  they  built  a  meeting-house,  and  for  a 
hundred  years  it  was  sufficient  to  their  needs. 
Then  another  church  was  built,  which  en- 
dured for  a  century  more,  when  it  was  re- 
placed by  a  "  gothic  edifice,"  which,  in  turn, 
was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1892. 

The  present  fine  structure  was  built  five 
years  later,  and  on  its  front  it  bears  a  tablet 
which  reads :  — 


Governor  Bradford. 


Plymouth.  221 

THE  CHURCH  OF  SCROOBY  LEYDEN  AND  THE 

MAYFLOWER 

GATHERED  ON  THIS  HILLSIDE  IN  l62O 
HAS  EVER  SINCE  PRESERVED  UNBROKEN  RECORDS 

AND  MAINTAINED  A  CONTINUOUS  MINISTRY 
ITS  FIRST  COVENANT  BEING  STILL  THE  BASIS  OF  ITS 

FELLOWSHIP 

IN  REVERENT  MEMORY  OF  ITS  PILGRIM  FOUNDERS, 
THIS  FIFTH  MEETING  HOUSE  ERECTED  tf>  M.  D.  CCC.  XCVII. 

On  the  right  hand  side  of  Town  Square, 
looking  toward  Burial  Hill,  lived  Governor 
Bradford,  and  here  he  died  in  the  sixty-eighth 
year  of  his  age,  having  lived  long  enough 
to  see  the  struggling  colony,  of  which  he 
had  so  long  been  the  guardian,  firmly  and 
prosperously  established. 

Upon  his  shoulders  had  rested  more  than 
upon  any  other's  the  care  and  responsibility 
of  government.  Thirty-one  times  was  he 
chosen  governor,  and  many  of  these  times 
much  against  his  will,  for  he  believed  in 
rotation  in  office,  and  that  every  one  should, 
in  turn,  do  his  part.  But  he  never  shirked 
a  duty,  and  even  in  the  years  when  he  was 


222  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

not  chief  magistrate,  he  bore  most  of  the 
burdens  of  the  office,  if  not  its  honors.  Only 
"  by  importunity  he  gat  off,"  as  Winthrop 
says,  during  a  few  years  of  deserved  leisure, 
and,  to  secure  this  respite,  he  once  filed 
eight  objections  to  a  re-election. 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  his  many  duties,  he 
found  time  for  study  in  those  branches  of 
learning  wherein  he  excelled.  A  good  lin- 
guist he  was,  speaking  Dutch  and  French, 
and  knowing  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew. 
In  connection  with  his  study  of  this  last 
tongue,  he  touchingly  says :  "  Though  I  am 
grown  aged,  yet  I  have  had  a  longing  desire 
to  see  with  my  own  eyes  something  of  that 
most  ancient  language  and  holy  tongue,  in 
which  the  law  and  oracles  of  God  were  written, 
and  in  which  God  and  the  angels  spake  to  the 
holy  patriarchs  of  old  time ;  and  what  names 
were  given  to  things  from  the  creation." 
Beside  his  linguistic  skill,  he  was  versed  in 
antiquity,  history,  philosophy,  and  theology. 

But  his  learning  was  less  remarkable  than 
his  liberality  in  that  narrow  age,  and  most 


Plymouth. 


223 


unusual  was  his  freedom  from  nearly  all  of 
the  superstition  which  like  a  nightmare  op- 
pressed his  age  and  confused  the  keenest 


The  Bradford  Monument. 

intellects.  For  him,  the  comets  had  no 
terror,  nor  had  the  eclipses,  for  witchcraft 
he  felt  only  contempt,  and  in  his  history 
never  alludes  to  it.  His  tolerance  in  relig- 


224  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

ious  matters,  as  well  as  his  courtesy  and 
thoughtfulness  for  others,  is  witnessed  to  by 
the  Jesuit  Father  Druillette,  who  visited  him 
in  Plymouth.  The  visit  falling  on  Friday, 
the  Governor  served  the  priest  a  dinner  of 
fish,  in  respect  of  the  usages  of  the  Church 
of  Rome.  His  most  precious  gift  to  the 
world,  next  to  the  fostering  care  he  gave  the 
struggling  settlement,  is  the  history  that  he 
wrote  of  Plymouth  colony,  and  which,  after 
being  lost  for  many  years,  has  since  been 
returned  to  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa- 
chusetts by  the  Bishop  of  London.  Of  all 
the  Pilgrims,  he  is  the  most  eminent.  He, 
more  than  any  other,  sowed  the  seeds  of  that 
tolerance  and  freedom  which  have  become  the 
crowning  glory  of  the  Republic. 

On  Burial  Hill,  that  had  sheltered  his  happy 
home  of  many  years,  he  was  buried  with  sad 
and  reverent  honor  by  his  mourning  people. 
There  his  grave  has  been  discovered  and 
properly  marked,  and  thousands  of  pilgrims 
each  year  seek  it  out  with  reverence.  Near 
the  crest  of  the  hill  it  is,  and  on  it  a  marble 


Plymouth. 


225 


obelisk  has  been  erected.  "  Do  not  basely 
relinquish  what  the  Fathers  with  difficulty 
attained "  is  its  Latin  inscription,  and  in 


The  Oldest  House. 

Hebrew:    "Jehovah    is    my   lot    and    mine 
heritage." 

Burial  Hill,  though  low,  is  steep,  and  domi- 
nates the  country  in  every  direction.     It  was 
the  natural  place  for  the  fort  that  defended 
Plymouth,  a  fortress  and  church  combined, 
'5 


226  The  Pilrim  Shore. 


for  in  it  the  Forefathers  met  to  worship  God, 
and  on  its  roof  they  mounted  six  cannon. 
The  site  of  the  fort  is  marked,  as  well  as  the 
corners  of  the  watch  tower  which  was  after- 
wards put  up  on  nearly  the  same  place. 

On  the  Hill  it  is  believed  that  the  Pilgrims 
buried  their  dead  from  the  earliest  time,  ex- 
cepting those  who  died  during  the  first 
winter.  But  the  gloom  of  a  graveyard  does 
not  hang  over  it,  for  its  situation  is  so  pleasant 
and  so  accessible  that  it  is  used  as  a  park, 
and  in  fact  few  pleasanter  resting-places  can 
be  found  anywhere.  The  view  it  commands 
of  the  harbor  and  the  town  itself  is  charm- 
ing, and  a  cheeriness  is  given  to  it  by  the 
many  visitors.  With  a  guide-book,  it  is  easy 
enough  to  find  all  the  interesting  things,  and 
there  are  always  guides  who  are  ready  to 
help  one  for  a  small  fee. 

I  have  spoken  of  these,  the  well  known 
"  sights"  of  Plymouth,  because  it  is  next  to 
impossible  not  to  ;  but  if  the  visitor  confines 
himself  to  them  he  will  miss  much  that  is 
interesting.  A  walk  through  the  older  parts 


"  A  Paradise  to  Etchers.* 


Plymouth.  229 

of  the  town  is  quite  worth  while,  for  al- 
though Plymouth  is  not  so  extraordinarily 
built  as  is  Marblehead,  and  holds  not  so 
many  fine  old  houses  as  does  Salem,  still  it 
has  a  picturesqueness  and  charm  far  from 
commonplace,  and  is  in  its  unexpectedness 
quite  fresh  and  original. 

In  the  older  parts  of  the  town  the  ancient 
houses  are  set  on  the  very  edge  of  the  sidewalk, 
just  as  they  are  in  the  Old  World.  Doubtless 
this  custom  was  brought  from  England  by 
our  ancestors.  A  few  of  these  old  houses 
are  parallel  to  the  streets,  either  lengthwise 
or  endwise,  but  the  most  of  them  have  no 
regard  for  street  lines,  even  if  they  are  not 
set  quite  eater-cornered.  Each  one  seems  to 
have  been  placed  according  to  the  particular 
needs  of  the  house  and  the  lot,  and  were 
adapted,  as  were  the  streets  themselves,  to 
"  the  lay  of  the  land."  Thus  the  town's  ways 
go  twisting  in  and  out  or  up  and  down,  as 
occasion  demands,  along  a  serrated  line  of 
buildings. 

All  the  old  houses,  of  which  there  are  a 


230 


The  Pilgrim  Shore. 


number,  have  been  much 
altered,    and   everywhere 
an    extraordinary    accre- 
tive style  of  building  has 
been  developed.     A  par- 
adise it  is  to  etchers  and 
sketchers,     for    it    abounds    in 
"  bits  "  quaint  and  unusual. 

The  picturesque  old  town  it- 
self is  finely  set,  for  down  to  its 
doors  almost  come  the  light 
forests  that  spring  from  the  thin 
soil.  A  country  of  little  hills  it 
is,  with  a  dry  scant  loam  like 
Cape  Cod ;  woods  of  oak  and 
birch  and  pine  are  interspersed 
with  fields  of  moss,  and  scant 
grass,  embossed  here  and  there 
by  clumps  of  bayberry,  sweet 
fern,  blueberry,  and  wild  rose. 
And  everywhere  gleam  the  shal- 
low Cape  ponds,  hundreds  of 
them,  like  sapphires  in  emerald 
settings.  Powdered  are  they  with 


I 


Just  as  the  Pilgrims  found  it." 


Plymouth.  233 

white  lilies,  and  hedged  by  broad  bands  of 
blue  flags,  green  rushes,  the  purple  pickerel 
weed,  and  nodding  pink  sabbatia. 

Here  in  early  spring  under  the  pines,  the 
Mayflower  blooms,  just  as  the  Pilgrims  found 
it  so  long  ago,  and  gave  it,  so  'tis  said,  the 
name  of  Mayflower,  in  loving  remembrance 
of  the  good  ship  which  had  brought  them 
safe  across  the  seas,  and  had  been  for  so  long 
a  time  their  only  home. 

Through  these  woods  a  few  of  the  wild 
deer  still  roam  and  breed.  Plenty  there 
were  in  the  old  days,  and  a  great  help  they 
were  to  the  colonists.  The  wolves,  against 
which  the  early  comers  had  to  protect  them- 
selves, have  long  since  been  extinct. 

Probably  the  country  itself  looks  about  as 
it  did  at  the  time  of  its  settlement,  for  the 
Cape  was  never  heavily  wooded  like  the 
North  Shore,  and  the  annalists  speak  of  much 
open  and  fine  champaign  country. 

And  if  the  landscape  has  changed  but 
little,  is  it  not  also  true  that  the  lofty  spirit 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  still  lives  unchanged 


234  The  Pilgrim  Shore. 

in  their  descendants  all  over  our  broad  land? 
For  has  He  not  multiplied  their  seed  "  as  the 
stars  of  the  heaven ;  and  as  sand  which  is 
on  the  seashore"  ?  Surely.  So  from  every 
part  of  this  great  nation  their  children  come 
to  do  homage  to  the  memory  of  those  illus- 
trious men  who,  self-exiled  for  conscience' 
sake,  crossed  the  wild  seas  to  an  unknown 
wilderness,  and  founded  a  nation  on  the  sure 
foundations  of  Justice,  Charity,  Liberty,  and 
Character. 


In  uniform  style  exquisitely  illustrated 


THREE  HEROINES  of  NEW 
ENGLAND  ROMANCE 

I.   PRISCILLA,   by  HARRIET  PRESCOTT  SPOFFORD 

II.  AGNES    SURRIAQE,  by  ALICE  BROWN 

III.  MARTHA  HILTON,  by  LOUISE  IMOGEN  GUINEY 

With  notes  on  the  towns  in  which  they  lived,  and  eighty- 
seven  illustrations,  including  numerous  full-page  pictures 
By  EDMUND  H.  GARRETT. 


12mo.    Cloth,  gilt  top,  $2.00 
Full  morocco,  gilt  edges,  $4.50 

A  charming  volume,  dealing  with  the  courtship  and  marriage 
of  three  famous  beauties  of  old  colonial  times. 
Mr.  Garrett's  notes   describe   and  illustrate   the  famous  old 
towns  of  Plymouth,  Marblehead,  and  Portsmouth. 

The  old  stories  are  told  again  with  renewed  sweetness  by  the 
pens  of  three  New  England  women  of  to-day.  —  New  England 
Magazine. 

Gracefully  written  and  felicitously  illustrated.  —  'The   Literary 

World. 

One  of  the  most  dainty  and  altogether  pleasing  examples  of 
symmetrical  and  harmonious  book-making  we  have  seen.  — 
T'he  Independent. 

The  romantic  stories  of  these  three  beautiful  women  are  placed 
in  a  book  bound  in  artistic  manner  —  in  delicate  gray,  pale 
blue,  or  white  with  gold  —  a  volume  which  would  have  been 
a  wonder  to  plainly  nurtured  Priscilla,  whose  sole  books  were 
doubtless  her  leather-bound  Bible  and  her  ill-printed,  parch- 
ment-covered psalm-book.  Even  the  luxury-loving  Lady 
Wentworth  knew  naught  of  such  daintiness.  — ALICE  MORSE 
EARLE,  in  the  Book  Buyer. 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 
OF  THE  PURITAN  COAST 

With  Many  Little  Picturings,  Authentic  or  Fanciful.  By 
EDMUND  H.  GARRETT.  Author  of  "The  Pilgrim 
Shore,"  etc. 


12mo.     Cloth,    gilt  top,  $2.00 
Full  morocco,  gilt  edges,  $4.50 


WEST  BEACH 

\_From  "  Romance  and  Reality  of  the  Puritan  Coast  "" 


This  volume,  a  companion  to  "The  Pilgrim  Shore,"  de- 
scribes the  Massachusetts  coast  as  far  as  Cape  Ann,  includ- 
ing Lynn,  Swampscott,  Nahant,  Beverly,  Marblehead, 
Manchester-by-the-Sea,  Gloucester,  Magnolia,  etc.  The 
illustrations  number  nearly  one  hundred  full-page  plates 
and  vignettes  from  pen-and-ink  drawings  by  the  author. 


He  has  enabled  his  readers  in  one  brief  evening  to  see  all  the 
bits  of  old  architecture,  charming  little  landscape  views,  the 
fisher  folk  and  their  boats  and  houses,  and  the  bold,  rocky 
points  of  Magnolia  and  Gloucester,  with  a  new  sense  of  their 
beauty  and  picturesqueness.  —  Boston  Herald. 


CJ  (1 

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WAMILY  NAMES  OF  TIE  PILGRIMS 
FOREFATHERS0" FIRST  COMERS 


IN  TIE  MAYFLOWER 


CARVER  -BRADFORD  -WINSLOW 

BREWSTER  -ALLERTON-STANDISH 

ALDEN-B 1 LLINGTON-BRITTEPIDGE 

BROWN  CHILTON-  CLARK- COOKE 

COOPER-  CRACKSTONE  DOTEY 

EATON  -ELY  •  ENGLISH  •  FLETCHER 

FULLER  -GARDINER-  GOODMAN 

HOLBECK-  HOOKE  •  HOPKINS 

HOWtAND-tANCEMORE  •  LATHAM 

L15TER-  MARGESON- MARTIN 

MORE-  MULLINS  •  NORRIS 

PRIEST-  PROWER  -RIGDALE 

ROGERS  -SAMPSON  •  SOULE 

STORY-  THOMPSON -TILLEY 

TINKER -TREVOR-TURNER 

MARREN-WHITE-  WILDER 

WILLIAMS 


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IN  THE  FORTUNE /\ 
ANNO  DOMINO  1621  €'"v<3 


ADAMS  •  BASSETT-  BEAC 
BOMPASSE-BREWSTER-BRIGGS 
CANNON  •  CONNOR-  CUSHMAN 
DEAN-DE  LA  NOYE  •  FLAVEL 
FORD-HICKS-HILTON  •  MORGAN 
MORTON  •  NICHOLAS-  PALMER 
PRENCE  •  PITT  •  SIMONSON 
STATIE-  STEWART-TENCH 
WINSLOW-WHICHT 


ANNABEL-  BANGS  -BARTLETT 

BURCHER  •  CONANT  •  CLARK 

CUTHBERTSON-  DIX-FAUNCE 

FLOOD-HEARD-HOLMAN-  JENNY 

KEMPTON'  LONG-MITCHELL 

flORTON  •  OLDHAM  •  PRATT 

RAND  -RATCLIFFE-SNOW 

5RAGUE  /"-^TILDEN 

TRACEY-WALLEN 


